News broke late Friday night that The Tonight Show would be laying off approximately 20 employees, and that the show would have its per-episode budget slashed by about $600,000. According to reports, the show’s budget had been bumped up to $2.3 million per episode back in 2010 when Leno moved to primetime, and NBC’s new Comcast overlords have decided to roll it back to put it closer to the previous figure. The bigger news, however, was that Jay Leno was taking a “substantial” pay cut to help save as many jobs as possible, as Josh discussed yesterday. From The Los Angeles Times:
Leno, whose current salary is between $25 million and $30 million, volunteered to take a cut if it would save some jobs. A person close to NBC thought Leno’s new salary to be around $20 million.
“Jay’s foremost concern is for the wonderful people who work for ‘The Tonight Show,’” Bruce Bobbins, one of Leno’s spokesmen, said in a statement. “He did what was necessary to ensure their well-being.”
First of all, let me say this: If their source is correct, and Leno offered to take a $5-10 million haircut if it would save some jobs, then that was a very nice thing to do. He certainly didn’t have to do it. He would have been entirely within his rights if he had just let the checks come rolling in while those extra staffers lost their jobs, so, you know, good on him for that.
But here’s the thing.
Jay Leno famously does not spend his Tonight Show salary, choosing instead to live off the money he makes from his busy stand-up career. He literally just puts it all in the bank, saying again as recently as this June that he’s “always done that,” and that it is “his style” to save the money because he views TV as a temporary job (which he has been doing consistently since 1992, for the record). In other words, Jay Leno took a cut in pay from a sum of money he DOESN’T EVEN USE. Conceivably, he could have taken an even larger pay cut, and it wouldn’t have affected him one iota. If I were one of the staffers whose job was not saved, I would be livid about this.
Look, I’m not saying Jay Leno has an obligation to, like, work for free to save his staffers. That’s not fair. He works in a high-profile job in a lucrative industry, and he is entitled to earn a salary relative to his value to his employers. Fine. But he is also a 62-year-old man who presumably has well over $100 million in the bank and will still be stuffing $400,000 per week into his mattress while close to two dozen people who work for him lose their jobs, so let’s not put a halo and wings on the dude, okay?
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It’s going to be awkward when he runs into his homeless ex-employees when he’s trying to record a Jaywalking segment.
These were my exact thoughts – how much more would he have to give up to save all those jobs? Even if they were making an average of $100,000 per year, it would only cost him $2 million more….$2 mil that he’s not using apparently.
I bet in 20 years there will be a new award given for broadcast excellence in the field of entertainment, and instead of calling it The Carson it’ll be either The Leno or The Chinny.
And Bryan Cranston will win it 3 years straight.
“…5-10 million dollar HAIRCUT…” ???? He doesn’t have that much hair!
Chin waxing is included in that figure.
That’s not really a fair argument to make. It’s analogous to someone saying, “Hey Danger, you make $40k after taxes, but last year you only spent $20k, and $5k of that was on Sandlot DVDs. For just half of your Sandlot budget, you could have saved dozens of lives by giving to charity!”
Ignoring the fact that after paying for taxes, people are free to spend their money anyway they like, money is fungible. It makes no difference where one dollar is earned compared to another dollar. Whether he’s spending his tonight show salary, or his standup salary, or a little bit of both, it makes no difference; the guy is crazy rich and has more money than he’ll ever need.
That being said, he’s still giving up a couple million dollars to help his people, saving at least 10 jobs in the process.
That’s not nothing. Leno isn’t the bad guy here, NBC is.
I would actually argue that neither is “the bad guy” here. If they’re not making money, then cutting costs makes sense. I had just seen a bunch of people tripping all over themselves to regurgitate the line from Leno’s representatives about what a super-neato-great guy he is for saving a handful of jobs when, if he had really wanted to, he could have saved even more without affecting his day-to-day life at all. It was still a really nice gesture, I’ll give him that. I was just trying to put it in perspective, I guess.
Also, I get the point you’re making with your analogy, but I would argue that (a) there’s a bit of a difference between a multi-multi-millionaire squirreling $20 million away every year and doing nothing at all with it, and someone making $40k spending their disposable income on something they enjoy and/or a hobby, and (b) in your analogy, I didn’t send out a representative to talk about what a hero I was for the money I DID donate to charity.
Either way, your points are fair, and noted.
And I do admit that I’m making some assumptions here. For all I know, Comcast could have put a limit on the number of people he could have saved, and he saved 100% of those people. If that’s the case, A+. I’m mainly just pushing back against the PR spin and pointing a few things that don’t smell right to me at this point.
Danger why do you need some many Sandlot DVDs?
It’s a personal issue that I would rather not discuss in a public forum.
@Danger
I agree the mega-rich guy is in a completely different circumstance than the $40k/year guy, I was sort of overdoing it for emphasis.
As for the PR rep, publicists, PR people and hollywood agents are worst. I’m not Leno apologist, but I can practically see the PR people going “OMG, The Tonight Show is firing people. How do we spin this for Jay???” Leno absolutely could have stopped the press release if he wanted to, but I kind of think this is just the way the game is played. Not giving him a total pass, but PR people are seriously terrible.
As for the squirreling away of all his millions, the rumor is that he’s trying to build the greatest automotive museum in the world. Something along the lines of the Smithsonian in scope and prestige. I think Adam Carolla said that on Jimmy Kimmel Live, but I can’t find the clip.
Dr. Roger Klotz, if he’s like me, it’s because he keeps wearing them out during the Squint/Wendy Peffercorn kiss.
2.3 million to point a couple of cameras at a desk?!? Seriously?
Yeah, but you have to remember that most of the staff consists of guards armed with tasers that force the audience to laugh at appropriate times.
Don’t worry about these staff cuts, Jay. You’ll pull through. Most hosts struggle in their first couple years after taking over for someone popular.
Mmm, that’s a good burn.
Well played.
I have no problem with the guy saving his earnings. That is more than his right. I do take umbrage with him being championed as willing to take a pay cut to save employees their jobs. I’m sure the Tonight Show being unable to turn a profit has plenty to do with it’s hosts top heavy salary.
Don’t look for a pat on the back.
Jay is giving that 10 million to NBC, correct? Unless he is personally funding his co-workers salaries, which it doesn’t sound like he is, who is to say NBC will use that money for payroll? Again, it sounds good in a press release, but when to comes down to it, I bet NBC pockets the majority of the giveback.
No. Even Amalgamated Slave Holdings, Inc. wouldn’t risk that kind of publicity.
To be fair, his show is awful so maybe the staff that was fired were an overwhelming reason for that awfulness.
Too bad Conan doesn’t have that time slot. oh wait.
It sucks, but the people getting laid off should at least looks at this silver lining: they no longer work for NBC.
He has eleventy-two billion cars from doing stand-up? I don’t think so.
After a lifetime in Showbiz he only has what Britney Spears has…???
…except for the weird tits..?
You are barking up the wrong tree. Leno is not the boss, he is the employee. He has done his job and has rating to show for it. The Tonight Show staff has done its job and helps Leno achieve his ratings. It is NBC that are the knuckle heads here. You have a top rated show and you are cutting staff? Are they intentionally trying to ruin the show? Money is the real reason Leno is now getting replaced.