NBC's Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien conundrum

By M&C Smallscreen Jan 20, 2008, 3:44 GMT

11/11/2007 - Jay Leno - © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

A few weeks back, chat show host Jimmy Kimmel made fellow late-nighter Jay Leno pause for a moment, ending all smalltalk after he posed a question Leno clearly didn't expect or welcome.

What are you going to do next year, Kimmel wanted to know?

(NBC had announced Conan O'Brien would take over The Tonight Show in 2009.)

Leno stammered and said, "I really haven't thought about it much."

Tom Jicha analyzed the whole late night chess game, predicting a huge problem for NBC if Jay decides he doesn't want to retire.

Jicha outlined NBC's arrangement with O'Brien" "If he is not given The Tonight Show next year, the network reportedly must pay him $45 million. That's a sizable chunk of change but amortized over, say, a new five-year deal with Leno, which he would sign as quickly as it takes for him to write the seven letters in his name, it's not that much by show-business standards. A shift of a rating point or two could cost NBC more than that."

Jay tops Dave in the ratings still. When NBC announced the transition more than three years ago, Jicha writes that "the thinking was that Letterman would be retired by 2009. In the interim, Dave has re-upped through at least 2010. Conan doesn't out-rate Craig Ferguson by that much, so his prospects against Dave are dicey at best. Throw in the advantage of incumbency Letterman will have and you could be looking at a mismatch."

Jicha speculates that if Leno became available, "Fox's local partners might be more favorably inclined to support the network. Leno knows this and he knows NBC knows this, which is why he has said that no matter what happens, he will not be retiring next year. How embarrassing would it be for NBC to be beaten by the guy it forced out the door? Even if Leno didn't out-rate O'Brien, he would pull enough audience to hand late-night supremacy to Letterman."