He was pablum for the most part, but Leno had some AMAZING musical guests every now and then. I miss Conan on NBC, likewise for music too. For every SNL band that has (and continues to) sound like garbage, the "A-Team" of NBC's engineers must have been old union guys who knew their shit working late night for the overtime, because I have heard some stunning stuff out of those two shows. Sadly, Conan's show on TBS is a badly forced Fallon wannabe and so far watered down from where he used to be. Fallon has improved from his early days, but he's still irrelevant and boring unless you're a 20-something hipster. Carson would never be allowed near late night today, or even on the air for that matter, and that's a pretty good indication of how bad it has become.
CNN used to pride itself on objective reporting and was truly just a good information clearing house, but after Rupert Murdoch put Dubya in the White House, they decided to play Fox News' foil and have suffered greatly for it.