Daily Corinthian • Sunday, February 9, 2014 • 3B
After 22 years, Leno says goodnight to ‘Tonight’ BY FRAZIER MOORE AP Television Writer
NEW YORK — Make way for Jimmy Fallon. “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno ended a stellar if sometimes stormy run Thursday night with high emotion at concluding what he termed “the greatest 22 years of my life.” Calling himself “the luckiest guy in the world,” Leno went out on top, which was where he stayed for most of his stretch as the successor to “King of Late Night” Johnny Carson. His exit, not entirely by choice, now clears the deck for yet another chapter of the 60-year-old talk show, with Fallon taking over as “Tonight” moves back to New York from its longtime Los Angeles home on Feb. 17. “You’re very kind,” Leno told his audience at the start of his last monologue. “I don’t like goodbyes. NBC does. I don’t care for them.”
He had said goodbye to “The Tonight Show” before. His first departure came in 2009, when he was briefly replaced by Conan O’Brien but reclaimed the show after a messy transition and O’Brien’s lackluster ratings. In ‘09, he was moving to a prime-time show on NBC; this time he’s out the door, and has said he’ll focus on comedy clubs and his beloved car collection. “I don’t need to get fired three times,” he cracked. “I get the hint.” Looking sharp in a black suit and bright blue tie, Leno was greeted by a standing ovation from the VIP audience. The typically self-contained comic betrayed a bit of nervousness, stumbling over a few lines in his monologue as he looked back comically. “When I started hosting, Justin Bieber wasn’t even born yet,” Leno marveled. “That’s why we
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called those ‘the good old days.’” The worst part of leaving NBC’s employ, he joked: “Now I’ll have to sign up for Obamacare.” But later Leno was serious, even choking up, when he shared that he’d lost his mother the first year he became “Tonight” host, his dad the second and then his brother. “And after that I was pretty much out of family. And the folks here became my family,” he said of the crew and staff of “Tonight.” The tender moments had a heightened effect on a show that was mostly aiming for laughs, with traditional monologue jokes, clips from old shows and a wild assortment of celebrities helping him close the book. Leno brought his show full circle with Billy Crystal, who was his first guest in May 1992 and his last guest Thursday. Crystal played ringmaster at one point, calling on Oprah
Winfrey, Jack Black, Kim Kardashian, Carol Burnett and others for a musical tribute to Jay with a “Sound of Music” song parody. “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. If Fallon tanks you’ll be back here next year,” sang Jack Black. “The Big Bang Theory” star Jim Parson’s contribution: “We’ve watched you when we’re weary. Your great success is called the big chin theory.” In a videotaped segment, celebrities offered career advice to Leno. “Why would I give a (expletive) about what he does? He’s a grown man,” said Mark Wahlberg. President Barack Obama, like other politicians a favorite target of Leno’s, struck back in his clip. “Jay, you’ve made a whole lot of jokes about me over the years, but do not worry, I’m not upset,” Obama said, adding that
Richard Nixon had resigned in the Watergate scandal. Leno’s appearance didn’t happen. “Making me the last guy screwed by Nixon,” Leno said. Garth Brooks performed his touching song “The Dance” before Leno’s likewise touching farewell remarks. “Now that I brought the room down,” Leno joked, he asked Brooks to lighten it up. Another Brooks song, “Friends in Low Places,” closed out the show. Leno, 63, has said he plans to continue playing comedy clubs, indulging his passion for cars and doing such TV work as comes his way — other than hosting on latenight. “I’m real excited for Jimmy Fallon,” Leno told his audience. “It’s kind of fun to be the old guy and sit back here and see where the next generation takes this great institution.”
Review: NBC’s Olympics online deserves silver medal BY ANICK JESDANUN AP Technology Writer
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he was making Leno the U.S. ambassador to Antarctica. “Hope you have a warm coat, funnyman.” Crystal sang Leno’s praises during the show, saying the late-night host made America feel a little better at bedtime and invoking his predecessor, Johnny Carson. Leno’s “Tonight” tenure was second in length only to Carson’s 30 years. “You were handed the baton by one of the alltime greats. But once it was in your grasp, you ran the race,” Crystal said. He and Leno, longtime friends, reminisced about the old days, with Leno recalling how Crystal and other comedians visiting his town, Boston, stayed in Leno’s apartment. “You’re calling it an apartment. I’m calling it a bomb site,” Crystal joked. Leno told how he was poised to make his network debut on Dean Martin’s show in 1974 when news came that President
NEW YORK — NBC comes close to gold in delivering the Winter Olympics online from Sochi, Russia. Although NBC has scaled back on a few fronts compared with previous years —and still refuses to show the opening ceremonies live — things have improved considerably since 2000, when online “video” meant still images grabbed from NBC’s video feeds. Fast forward to the London Summer Games in 2012, when every single competition and medal ceremony was available live. NBC has extended that to the Sochi games, which began Thursday. Every sport is available live at NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra apps for Apple, Android and Windows Phone devices — the Windows version just arrived Tuesday. By contrast, during the previous Winter Games, NBC largely limited live video to curling and ice hockey. On Thursday, I was able to watch the short program in team figure skating shortly after 10:30 a.m. EST, or 7:30 p.m. in Sochi. NBC didn’t make me wait until its television broadcast in the evening. By then, I might have learned of results from Facebook or the multitude of websites offering non-video coverage. The day’s coverage actually began at 1 a.m. EST. with qualification rounds in men’s slopestyle. It’s a form of snowboarding in which skiers display technical skills and creativity as they maneuver down a slope peppered with jumps and rails they must slide across. I know that because NBC had a short video explaining the sport. Of course, I didn’t actually get up at 1 a.m. to watch the Olympics. That would be crazy. Instead, my alarm went off at 4 a.m. Less crazy. I didn’t make it out of bed until closer to 5 a.m.,
though, when qualification rounds for women’s slopestyle began. It’s unfortunate that NBC doesn’t allow me to watch from the beginning. I have to catch the live stream in progress. I also cannot rewind and pause video on the website, while capabilities vary on the apps. There was a lot of down time watching events on opening day. I had to wait more than an hour between the two groups of skiers in women’s slopestyle. The live video continued, but it was mostly a distant shot of the slope. It was like watching paint dry. I would have wanted to use that time to catch up on events I missed while sleeping. But NBC isn’t making replays available until about 2:30 p.m. CST each day. For some events, that’s more than half a day later. The exceptions will be in lower-profile sports such as curling and ice hockey. Another limitation: I’m able to watch just one video at a time. During the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, I was able to watch four — one on the main screen, plus three in smaller windows to the side. Although there weren’t any overlapping events Thursday, that’s coming. The alternative is to watch a second feed on a phone or tablet. Live video and fullevent replays are limited to subscribers of pay TV services, such as Comcast, Verizon and DirecTV. If you’ve dropped cable to save money, you’re limited to 30 minutes of video on the first day you watch, and five minutes a day after that — enough to get a taste of what you’re missing. Without a subscription, you can still get highlights and other features for free. There are actually two Olympics-related apps from NBC. Live Extra gets you live video, while schedules, results and news stories are on a separate app, NBC Olympics Highlights and Re-
sults. NBC continues its practice of using a lot of video from world feeds produced for countries that don’t have their own broadcasters. These are broadcast-quality feeds, with graphics, commentary and replays chosen by the production crews. It’s nice to see nonAmericans compete, something that’s typically missing from NBC’s television broadcasts unless they are the top contenders. But it also feels as though NBC is just throwing these videos online. NBC will address this partly by expanding an online channel called “Gold Zone.” With multiple events going on, it can be difficult to keep track of what to watch. “Gold Zone” takes you to the best of what’s happening. NBC offered that in London, but “Gold Zone” will get more of a broadcast feel in Sochi with hosts and a studio. It won’t start until Saturday, though. In a sense, the online experience is beginning to replicate television, with more content made available to you. Consequently, the online features feel less interactive and more difficult to seek out. The events schedule now feels more like a television listing. Events are displayed chronologically, rather than as a grid that lets you jump around from day to day, sport to sport. Results are buried in the schedule, rather than collected in one place under a “results” tab. If you have a streaming device such as Roku or Chromecast, you’re largely out of luck. I managed to get video on the big-screen TV only by using an Apple TV to mirror the display on my Mac computer. That feature is disabled on iPhones and iPads. NBC wants the online experience to be like television, without replacing television. In doing so, it’s adding constraints that make online viewing a silver-medal effort at best.
Discovery to air wingsuit flight off Everest Associated Press
NEW YORK — Discovery Channel plans a live broadcast of the first wingsuit flight off the summit of Mount Everest. High-altitude climber Joby Ogwyn will make the attempt in May, and Discovery announced Wednesday that it will be there to cover it.
The network will air a live two-hour broadcast showing the California native as he battles conditions on the way to the summit of the world’s tallest mountain, then takes the plunge. His custom-made wingsuit will be equipped with cameras to capture the descent of more than 10,000 vertical feet at
speeds exceeding 150 mph. This main event will be preceded by shows about Ogwyn’s extensive training and preparation. Discovery and TLC Networks boss Eileen O’Neill called Ogwyn’s planned feat “history in the making.” No date has been specified for the broadcast.