Jay Leno may be back soon at 11:35; Conan O'Brien probably won't be back 'til 2011. (AP)
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that NBC will pay Conan O’Brien nearly $40 million to walk away from The Tonight Show.
O’Brien’s exit agreement could be set as soon as today.
According to the Journal, O’Brien wouldn’t be permitted to bad-mouth his former bosses, nor can he work on another TV show until the year is out.
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Zap2It is reporting NBC has announced its Monday-Friday schedule for 10 p.m. once the Winter Olympics are over.
NBC is making the move to put several original dramas in place of The Jay Leno Show, which the network announced is leaving the prime-time schedule following the Olympics.
On Monday, Law & Order will move to 10 p.m., and Trauma will return and fill the 9 p.m. spot.
On Tuesday, new series Parenthood will follow The Biggest Loser at 10.
Wednesdays will see the new hour of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit at 10, while “encores” (aka re-runs) of SVU will be shown at 9.
Jerry Seinfeld’s new creation The Marriage Ref will head to Thursdays at 10, while a two-hour Dateline NBC at 9 will be preceded by new show Who Do You Think You Are?, a celebrity genealogy show.
People magazine is reporting on its Web site that Conan O’Brien is planning to make Jan. 22 his last Tonight Show.
A source close to O’Brien tells People that the host isn’t planning to do any more new shows beyond next Friday.
The move would mean the show’s new content ends two weeks before its scheduled preemption for NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics.
UPDATE: US Weekly, People‘s rival, is saying that the report on Conan quitting on Jan. 22 is not true. Conan’s rep has apparently told them that he has a scheduled week off the week of Jan. 25. Stay tuned!
UPDATE: Even if he is quitting, it doesn’t look like O’Brien is coasting to the finish. According to the New York Times blog Media Decoder, O’Brien’s staff has apparently secured Tom Hanks to appear on next Tuesday’s show. In addition, the popular indie band Spoon is set to appear on the same night.
Kimmel as Leno, and the genuine article.
The big late-night story hasn’t been NBC’s alone for a little while now — it’s definitely spread to all networks.
Therefore, it’s not altogether shocking that Jay Leno has invited ABC host Jimmy Kimmel for Leno’s 10@10 Q&A segment on Thursday’s show.
Especially since Kimmel did his entire show on Tuesday doing a broad impression of Leno — complete with fake chin and grey wig.
Think Jay’ll bring it up?
‘I’M WITH COCO’: As Margaret Lyons of EW’s Pop Watch notes, the poster featuring Conan O’Brien and the phrase “I’m with Coco” has grown in popularity by a huge margin. (Actually, Lyons said it better: “levels of ubiquity we haven’t seen since Shepard Fairey took on Obama.”)
Lyons spoke with the artist responsible, Mike Mitchell, who said he originally set out to make a campaign poster for O’Brien:
“A friend suggested just ‘I’m with Conan,’ and Mitchell landed on the far-catchier ‘I’m with Coco.’ It’s a slogan even Swiss Miss could be jealous of.”
More: Coverage of the NBC late night situation
Fox News is reporting that Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien was “devastated” when discussing the NBC late-night situation with his staff on Tuesday.
O’Brien, who released a statement Tuesday that he wouldn’t accept a move for The Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. to accommodate Jay Leno’s move to 11:35 p.m., reportedly broke down when giving a speech to his staff.
“Everybody has been walking around really sad and it’s really weird as far as going on with the show. It’s miserable around there and Conan gave a speech to all of his staff and he broke down crying,” said our source. “He is incredibly tight with his staff. This is the staff from his inception, from when he first started, which is why this is pretty unreal. This is the staff from the start.”
Fox News had varying reports on the mood of the staff — one source focused on the fact that his team uprooted from New York to Los Angeles when O’Brien moved from Late Night to Tonight, while another said there is optimism that O’Brien and his staff will quickly find a new home.
More: Coverage of NBC’s late-night situation
NBC’s late-night competitors took two slightly different routes Tuesday in discussing the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien situation, each with strong results.
On CBS’ Late Show, David Letterman decided to give his version of history, complete with squeaky Jay Leno impersonation. Letterman, while funny, had a lot of great points, not the least of which was: This is about money, more than anything else.
So now that Conan O’Brien has made his stand, not agreeing to NBC’s move to shift The Tonight Show to after midnight to make room for Jay Leno, it’s made his show must-see TV.
According to Zap2It blogger Rick Porter, O’Brien’s first show since the announcement handled things with varying degrees of success and bitterness. One of the brighter moments came when O’Brien got some career advice in a unique way from Howie Mandel:
Palm Beach Gardens attorney Pepe Sosa admits that he doesn’t watch the local news every night at 11, but when he does, the broadcast he chooses is usually the one that follows the show he was watching at 10.
And pretty much ever since NBC premiered The Jay Leno Show at 10, that news show hasn’t come from WPTV-News Channel 5, the local NBC affiliate.
“If I was going to leave the news on, the lead-in would be important, and lately that hasn’t been Channel 5 at all because of Jay Leno,” says Sosa, 36.
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During his wild run of popularity during the last decade, comedian Dane Cook was a frequent guest of both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien.
As the situation with NBC’s late-night schedule comes to a head, Cook is as interested as anyone watching what’s happening.
“In both their cases, they deserve to thrive and win,” Cook said in a phone interview. “They have such different comedy approaches.”
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We’re a little late on this, as some of the rumors have already come to pass somewhat — Jay Leno’s prime-time show is canceled, Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show is likely moving to midnight.
However, this is Conan’s response to the rumors on Friday, and while he does handle them in his usual, slightly absurdist style, please note his closing line:
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