o'brien to take over for leno in 2009!

5 years from now...that's when conan will take jay's job. seems awfully early, but when one is talking about human resources, and especially a singular human resource, it is imperative to secure the resource. there is no question that as a human being, conan is rare and without the miracles of cloning, most definitely impossible to imitate. the question at hand thus becomes: is conan valuable?

to a television studio, there is only one way to answer this question...viewership. increased viewership is indicated by increased Nielson ratings, which in turn allow for increased fees for commercial advertisements, and finally increased revenues for the studio. for the past 10 years, NBC has led in the ratings for the 11:35pm time slot (leno), though this gap is narrowing. in order to sustain this advantage, NBC will need an appropriate human resource to take over for leno. enter conan o'brien. conan is dominating his current 12:35am time slot with 2.5M viewers. while conan's viewership is approximately half that of his 11:35 compatriots, this disparity can be attributed to his later time slot. in this light, it is shown that conan is most definitely valuable, this fact is further insinuated by the interest of other television networks in obtaining conan.

having established that conan is valuable, rare, and hard to imitate, it is also noted that conan is being exploited by NBC by signing such a long contract. under barney's VRIO framework, conan gives NBC a sustained competitive advantage. at this point, the only thing that could harm NBC is if its resource loses value. as mentioned before, it is the american populous that determines conan's value. NBC is banking that americans won't change their mind in the next 5 years, an iffy bet at best. but if conan is half as good as this contract implies, he too will change to adapt to the changing environment, and NBC will reap the benefits.