The Tonight Show - NBC (formerly The Jay Leno Show)

[TopCatDC]

Good to see that NBC is taking care of his staff. I am betting he will show on Fox this fall. Fox is more his demographic anyway so he will do well over there.

I agree that Fox is a good fit, but the problem is that Fox has no network programming after 10pm. It's the news, and then the affiliates run syndicated re-runs. Fox will have to convince the affiliates to gamble on Conan going against established players Letterman and Leno. Again, its a strategy that could work in the long term, but the risk may be a hard sell compared to the guaranteed returns they can get with Seinfeld and Friends. Murdoch could put Conan on the 25 Fox-owned stations, but corralling the remaining 174 independent affiliates may be too much even for a strong-man like Rupert.

[Fierce Critter]

I told my husband that Conan should make some kind of joke on his last show about Leno trying to book Hugh Grant on his first episode back at the helm of TTS. Or that if Leno was smart, he WOULD do just that sort of thing.

Maybe Hugh Grant, Eddie Murphy, and anyone else who's willing to make light of the fact that they were caught with a hooker. :p

[Miss_Griss]

I believe you are right that Jay helped bury Arsenio (with his playbook of dirty tricks, later blamed on Helen Kushnick--which is a load of crap--Jay knew about it).

But The Arsenio Hall Show premiered in January of 1989. The Tonight Show with Mr. Chin premiered May 25, 1992. Arsensio had a three year and several months jump on Leno, but was already starting to slide (he held out until May of 1994, after Dave Letterman joined the fray and that put the last nail in).

Letterman's Late Show premiered on August 30, 1993, by the way, so Jay had a 15 month head start.

Interesting, Krom. Thanks for doing the research that I was too lazy to do.

[causingchaos]

Wonder how Conan would do in the 10 p.m. time slot. Maybe add some zany variety acts that would fit well with his general personality and brand of humor. Did anyone think of just having them swap time slots?

Variety shows just don't thrive on TV anymore regardless of who is hosting them. They just don't hold people's attention especially if they have to see it night after night.

[Dogg]

i think nbc has been the problem

they pushed jay out when he was doing great, to bring in conan

now they realize they made a mistake and flip flopping

if anythink, i think jay has gotten dissed by nbc the most and if he didn't have a contract...

i'd ultimately rather see jay bounce over to fox and be led in by the tmz

conan can stay at nbc and get abused by nbc

just my opinion

i always liked jay and kimmel, i can't get with conan i tried watching when i was awake, but i guess my kind of humor and conans don't mesh...young cats seem to think he's > jay

[Mike'sgirl]

Conan reaches 45 mil exit deal!
Not bad and good for him! He only gets 33 mil and the rest goes to his staff (of 200). Here is the associated press link:
Television show - TV Show - Yahoo! TV

[Fierce Critter]

His show has gotten hilarious. He keeps having the band play songs that costs NBC a ton of $$ in fees, and plays actual cuts from bands like The Rolling Stones, which also cost a pretty penny.

[NCLurker]

While I think this whole situation is a mess, and I do think Conan did what he had to do, I don't really care about what happens to late night. Years ago I would watch some Letterman or Leno just depending on my mood and the guest who were appearing. There is something about Letterman that creeps me out, can't really figure out what. Kimmel can actually be entertaining at times, but not always. Conan has NEVER appealed to me. I just don't find anything about his humor humorous, just annoying and not funny. There were bits of Leno's shows that I really enjoyed but not enough to be anywhere near faithful.

I do agree that regardless of what happened this whole thing reeks for those involved. Glad that Conan got a good settlement for himself and his staffers. Classy thing to do.

[captain]

My question....what happens if Leno tanks in this time slot now?

[Critical]

My question....what happens if Leno tanks in this time slot now?

Then the NBC execs will learn a lesson about karma.