After a week of caustic jokes, jawboning and behind-the-scenes negotiations, “Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien is leaving NBC to make room for the return of Jay Leno to late-night TV.
An announcement could come as early as Saturday and will settle, at least in public, the acrimonious maneuvering among the comedians, their respective camps and NBC in the wake of its decision to shuffle Leno from prime time and back to his late-night slot, which O’Brien has occupied for the last seven months.
In the past few days, representatives for O’Brien and NBC resolved key issues, including how long O’Brien would have to sit on the sidelines before appearing on a rival network and how large a check the network would have to write, according to a person close to the negotiations. A couple points were still to be hammered out, the person said, but were not expected to derail the deal.
O’Brien, the fifth host of “The Tonight Show,” is likely to have his final show next Friday.
Leno’s last show in prime time will be Feb. 11, the day before opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.
O’Brien and NBC have been at loggerheads since last week when the network decided to cancel Jay Leno’s low-rated 10 p.m. show after only four months and return him to 11:35 p.m. That would have pushed O’Brien’s show to 12:05 a.m.
But O’Brien refused to go along with NBC’s plan. He contended the move would violate his contract.
A final resolution will be costly to NBC.
O’Brien, who earns about $12 million annually, has two and a half years remaining on his contract. How much NBC will have to pay O’Brien depends on several factors, including how long the comedian stays off the air. But O’Brien’s existing package is expected to be about $25 million to $35 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the negotiations were supposed to be private.
O’Brien’s departure from NBC, where he started in 1988 as a writer on “Saturday Night Live” and five years later won his own late-night talk show, caps a week of on-air barbs and lampooning aimed at the network and Leno by O’Brien and other talk show hosts. “Welcome to NBC. Where our new slogan is, ‘No longer just screwing up prime-time,’” said O’Brien the other night.
NBC’s flip-flop on Leno and again relegating O’Brien to second-string status not only tarred the reputations of O’Brien and Leno but also tarnished the legacy of Jeff Zucker, the NBC Universal chief executive who championed Leno’s move to prime time. Zucker handed Leno his own show in prime time as a way to keep the comedian at the network after he had promised O’Brien could inherit “The Tonight Show” by 2009.
The financial consequences of Zucker’s decision are severe, and likely to last a long time. Not only did the network spend more than $30 million to build new studio sets for both talk show hosts, but NBC will now have to spend tens of millions more to develop new show to fill the 10 p.m. time period vacated by Leno. In addition, “The Tonight Show” has lost nearly half of its audience, and it’s unclear if Leno will be able to get his old viewers back. Local TV stations also suffered as their ratings plummeted.
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