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NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > JAY LENO TALKING TO TBS AFTER CONAN O’BRIEN ANNOUNCES NEW DEAL
JAY LENO TALKING TO TBS AFTER CONAN O’BRIEN ANNOUNCES NEW DEAL
April 12 2010
Atlanta, GA – When news broke earlier this year about the shake-up in late night television it brought some of the greatest attention and some of the greatest laughs the genre had seen in years. The battle between virtually all the late night hosts ended
with victims, victors, and a whole new audience that had long ago forsaken the late night game. Of course the one person at the centre of it all, Conan O’Brien, was the one left without a seat when the music stopped, and the one who garnered the most sympathy. Now, O’Brien has found his seat.
While everyone had believed it a foregone conclusion that O’Brien would ink a deal with Fox for a new show, he went against everyone’s expectations and signed with the lower tier TBS for five years. Though the network has been around for decades, it has never been a major player in original programming, instead relying on syndication and endless repeats of ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. Now however with a major ace in their pocket the network is prepping itself for primetime with the addition of O’Brien. However, that move may just be the first of many for a network that can suddenly start drawing the attention of previously unattainable talent, and the first major player to start talks is O’Brien’s old rival, Jay Leno.
“Everyone at the network is super stoked about this and really surprised. The whole thing happened so quickly and I don’t think anyone even thought we were in the running but here we are with Conan and TBS tied at the hip,” said a TBS insider. “This means a whole lot of great things for everyone here, for our programming, and for our jobs in the long term. We are going to get all kinds of new interest from all kinds of people and become a real player in television the way we always feel we should have been. It’s happening already, I heard that Jay Leno was flying in to talk to the executives tomorrow.”
Leno was the reason for O’Brien’s departure from NBC earlier this year when he resumed hosting ‘The Tonight Show’.
“This is certainly an unexpected move and it could either be brilliant or a total disaster. 
O’Brien certainly has a lot of sympathizers and a lot of people interested but he has a very limited fan base which is why he lost the show in the first place. There will certainly be a lot of interest at the start, but that will dissipate quickly,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “Luckily the expectations are lower here than they were at NBC but it won’t be long before TBS starts seeing the green and expecting more and more of him. That is likely the reason they are talking to Leno who has proven himself capable of bringing in much bigger ratings and is likely a very tempting proposition for the station.”
It’s not clear how Leno would get around his deal with NBC or if this is simply another move to keep O’Brien off the air.
“Obviously Leno has this hard on for O’Brien and would like to see him eliminated from the television landscape entirely. He likely had some animosity towards him for stealing his show, but in the last few months Leno looked like the bad guy, which is something he won’t take lying down,” continued Temple. “Everyone who knows Leno, to a fault cite his pettiness and ruthlessness in business dealings and he certainly looked to fool earlier this year so I’m sure he is going to want his revenge, which is undoubtedly the reason he’s going to Atlanta. Watch out Coco.”
O’Brien has reportedly taken to wearing a bulletproof vest since falling off the air but Leno has always been one to shoot for the head.
Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent
NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > JAY LENO TALKING TO TBS AFTER CONAN O’BRIEN ANNOUNCES NEW DEAL
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