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Just stay quiet, Leno

Last night, Leno gave his perspective, which is of course his right to do.  Something bugged me about it though:

2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’

Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well.

There’s something wrong about what he said here.  In 2004 his show had been number one for under 9 years.  He had been given THREE WHOLE YEARS to build an audience on The Tonight Show.  Three years.  Conan was given less than a quarter of that.  Leno, I know you want to make sure you don’t seem like the bad guy, but just stay quiet.