Culture

Conan O'Brien Offered $30 Million to Vacate Leno Late Night?

by Amy Judd | January 16, 2010 at 11:38 am

961 views | 25 Recommendations | 3 comments

Some rumors are circulating today that Conan O'Brien has been offered $30 million to vacate the Leno late night time slot and leave NBC.

The network has agreed to pay O'Brien $30 million to vacate the 11:35 p.m. "Tonight Show," individuals involved in the negotiations have told TheWrap.

However, people from O'Brien's camp have said that those numbers are not correct and that a deal has not been reached. TMZ is reporting that a deal is expected to be announced today, but we'll keep you posted on the details.

On Friday, Conan O'Brien addressed the rumors in a round-about way:

"Hi, I’m Conan O’Brien -- future answer to a $200 “Jeopardy” question.

"Welcome to tonight’s show. By the time you see this, I’ll be halfway to Rio in a stolen NBC traffic copter."

"In the press this week, NBC has been calling me every name in the book. In fact, they think I’m such an idiot they now want me to run the network."

There is confusion aas to whether NBC has breached O'Brien's contract by moving his show but NBC says that as long as there is something called The Tonight Show on the air, then the contract is not breached.

There is supposedly a clause in the settlement deal that says Conan cannot trash NBC if he takes the deal and he cannot take another hosting gig for a certain amout of time or NBC will be able to pay him much less money.

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Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 12:32 on January 16th, 2010

Not bad for severance pay.

Manny Castro

at 16:24 on January 16th, 2010

Chances are he'll go to FOX, but first that network has to fix the issue with the affilates. All the affilates have syndication deals at the moment. So, it's going to be a while before Conan is on the air.

George Hine (not verified)

at 07:43 on January 17th, 2010

I could never stand to watch Conan O' Brian's more then a few minutes. I think he's not that funny, comes off as a wise guy and not as friendly as the other hosts, and therefore to sum it up a duchebag! I think Craig Furgerson makes two of Conan and is more people friendly and humble and at least appears not to be too full of himself. Even though he's on another network following Dave Letterman, he has less props, a tighter budget and does a lot more entertaining just with his personality and is the first host to talk close to the camera every night to give people at home a sense he's talking right to them and they are welcome. My advise, get rid of Conan, he's over paid and his sense of humor and telling jokes takes on a smart-alack persona. Not that I wanted to see anyone get hurt, but to see Conan fall on his azz early in his new show's time slot did my heart good, however I'd would feel bad for anyone that gets seriously hurt regardless of what I think of their demeanor.