Culture

Jay Leno to Replace Conan O'Brien?

by Jordan Yerman | January 7, 2010 at 03:05 pm

1380 views | 56 Recommendations | 11 comments

TMZ says that the Jay Leno Show is going on hiatus during the Winter Olympics, and, once the games are over, Jay Leno will reclaim his 11:30 pm late-night spot. So, does this mean that Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show will be shortened, with Jay Leno as a lead-in? Or will Jay Leno return to The Tonight Show, with Conan being effectively canceled on NBC? Manny Castro posits a possible Conan move to Fox.

NBC did not say that it will cancel the Jay Leno Show, but that doesn't really mean anything vis-a-vis Conan O'Brien. Possible scenarios also include a shortened version of The Tonight Show, or simply a return to the status quo. Josef Adalian writes that NBC will not be canceling The Jay Leno Show, but in this case NBC's statement does not really answer the question, which is:

"Will Conan stay or go?"

As the SCAN below shows, the Twitterverse is all abuzz about this development, and people seem really passionate one way or the other.

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Manny Castro

at 16:54 on January 7th, 2010

Tomorrow, ABC and FOX will enter a bidding war over Conan.

Albert Milliron

at 17:40 on January 7th, 2010

Good catch. I deleted the story I posted as You were first. I missed it. Interesting poll results

Barry ORegan

at 17:42 on January 7th, 2010

Guess Dave is going to be the Bridesmaid once again.

ObiDfw

at 22:56 on January 7th, 2010

They should cancel Jimmy Fallon and his blinking.I like the guy but man late night is not for him. Then they should put things back to what they used to be. All the late night guys suck right now its pathetic. The only guy worth anything right now is Conan.

Manny Castro

at 19:27 on January 8th, 2010

Conan will address the issue on tonight's show. Just an FYI.

YankeeJim

at 09:15 on January 9th, 2010

Late night television is a tired act.

trampolines fan (not verified)

at 07:28 on January 20th, 2010

I heard a rumour that jay leno is being considered to replace jonathan ross now he is leaving the bbc ?

Tomitheos Linardos

at 20:42 on February 13th, 2010

Great write up.

When they first introduced the change over contract 5 years ago, I don't know how they had assumed so early on that Jay Leno should have been phased out by now and replaced by Conan in the first place whereby Johnny Carson had hosted the Tonight Show well into his retirement years. Conan belongs in his comfort zone late nite in the city of NewYork where he has had much success.

Liz McKibbon

at 09:53 on March 3rd, 2010

Wow. I'm surprised to see your poll in such favor of Conan! I have never been a fan, and I'll be glad when they sort all of this out. I'm a huge Jay Leno fan, but I think I have more of an old lady sense of humor than most.

Grey Ghost (not verified)

at 19:45 on March 3rd, 2010

These guys are, all of them, I am sorry to say, a bit boring to me. In fact, they are so boring that I cannot recall when it was the last time I watched them. Only from time a time some short YouTube clip to keep me informed for the water cooler in between posters printing jobs :)

Other than that, why the heck we care about guys making $40M ++ a year and are not even too funny (or for some, not funny at all)?

MegT (not verified)

at 00:13 on March 23rd, 2010

i never cared all the much for conan for some reason and generally liked jay. he did make me laugh. but to each his/her own. can't say i'm thrilled with the way jay used his weight to force his way back into 11:30 and push conan out, tho. craig ferguson is funnier than all of 'em rolled together, in my opinion! : ) why he's never been tapped for an 11:30 spot beats me. anyway! : D~