Did CoCo buy a $1.5 mil comedy skit on NBC's dime?

Tonight's edition of the Conan/Leno/NBC debacle was amazing. The Masturbating Bear returned from hibernation, and it looks like CoCo purchased 1.5 million dollars worth of revenge comedy in the form of a Bugatti Veyron car and licensing fees for the original master recording of a Rolling Stones song. If only late-night US TV were always this awesome!

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Entertainment

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

gaberussell

I assume the car is rented. If they’d bought it, they could’ve done something destructive and insane.
JGB

You folks really need to read up a bit.

No PR stunt… just using a bad situation to create PR…

Read: The Late Shift, The last Great Ride, Three Blind Mice.

TV execs are like crack users. They exist in the immediate gratification world.

To DUMP Leno outright would cost an exorbitant amount. to DUMP Conan is cheap in comparison.

— Follow the money trail.
Anonymous

I think Conan has more integrity than to go along with something like this. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to save face if it ever came out that it was a hoax.
TotalForge

Broadcasters have paid blanket licenses with organizations like BMI and ASCAP to play music on the air. Radio stations don’t pay, in some strange historical twist possibly left over from the payola scandals.

It is true they would have to pay additional money for Internet use, or something like publishing to DVD, so NBC not showing the clip online makes some sense – though they could just as easily mute the sound.

If NBC had the least bit of sense they would leave Conan on, and tell him to make as much fun of them as possible. Zucker and Ebersol should show up to get pies in the face! They are truly great executives… for me to poop on!
Anonymous

Rental. Still funny as hell though.
Anonymous

This is a stunt, of course. There is a long waiting time period to get a Veyron built. This has to be on loan from a friend (Jay Leno?). I doubt the Stone bit is crazy expensive either. Besides, you know, with Haiti and such, how callous would it be to do this instead of, you know, have 100,000 Snuggies airdrop on Haiti?
Mikey48

Hoax or not….it’s a pretty excellent metaphor for a giant economy size middle finger to his meddling bosses. I have wished for that ability several times and had to settle for just a regular old finger…
Johnny Blaze

Would be funny if they did buy the car and Jeff Zucker ends up taking it to cut their losses.
mr_josh

I’m still not confident that the whole thing isn’t a hoax. I get the feeling that we’ll see an 11th hour deal go down that keeps Conan on the network (maybe even on the show). I think it’s all phony.

NBC has been really in to the whole “executives are hilarious eccentric know-nothings a-ha-ha-ha” schtick (30 Rock, The Office), I think this whole “fight” is an invention to get people tuned in and familiarized.

Maybe not, but doesn’t it all seem suspicious?
- EH
  
  Last week I commented to my brother that the whole thing smelled like a rap feud. We’ll see.
  - Rob
    
    Yeah, but “rap feuds” killed 2pac and Biggie.
    
    Corporate America isn’t clever enough to do this. You’re watching people implode on national TV. Which. Is. Awesome.
- Uncle_Max
  
  I really really really hope this is the case. NBC could fake fire Conan every week, and it would be the best thing I could hope for.
- Cowicide
  
  If this was all a hoax then that would mean Jeff Zucker would probably be the chief architect behind the whole thing. Zucker doesn’t strike me as that smart of a person really.
Anonymous

NBC = Solomon
Conan = True Mother
Leno = False Mother
The Tonight Show = Baby

unfortunately, NBC doesn’t seem to be as wise as Solomon, and they are handing the show off to the “bad” mother %#^$er
webmonkees

Well, the car can always be de-moused and returned, but those license fees are forever.
Boba Fett Diop

The best part of the Bugatti gag is that Jay Leno is a well known collector of exotic cars, and I don’t think he owns a Veyron.
impy

Conando Catharsis (NSFNBC link): http://tinyurl.com/yedza6x
uriaha

The “Satisfaction”/Bugatti clip is cut from Hulu, so I think NBC must not have been very happy about Conan’s new character and its theme song.