Conan O’Brien Considers FOX Move as Jay Leno Returns

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Schedule shake-up slights O’Brien causing possible rife in late night headlines.

The Tonight Show‘s host Conan O’Brien could be looking for a new network as the NBC debacle continues Stateside.

Jay Leno has dominated the late night spot on NBC for so long that it was always going to be a risk when the network moved Leno to an earlier sitting and brought in funny man Conan O’Brien to fill Leno’s shoes.

After just five months in an earlier time slot, NBC confirmed that Leno would be taking the reins back from O’Brien, as the failed experiment would be canned with the start of the Winter Olympics.

NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin said the new line-up would see Leno move back to his favoured 11:35 pm slot for a half hour show, pushing O’Brien back to 12:05 am for The Tonight Show.

As a result Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night will be knocked back ultra-late for a slot between 1:05 and 2:05 am. “My goal is to keep Jay, Conan and Jimmy as our late-night lineup,” said Mr Gaspin according to the New York Post. Whether the slighted O’Brien will stay at NBC remains to be seen.

The Wall Street Journal alleged that Conan has met with rival network FOX with the possibility of moving over to create a new late night slot for the network. If so, NBC could lose one of its brightest comedic talents to a fierce rival.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld compared the debacle to the failed AOL Time Warner “deal of the century”. “Everyone says what a terrible deal it was… but it was the right idea, just at the wrong time. That’s the way I feel about this,” he commented to Entertainment Tonight.

O’Brien has some thinking to do; meanwhile he remained composed and funny as ever as he joked: “until this whole thing is sorted out, NBC lawyers have advised me to refer to this program as The Some Time at Night Show With Some White Guy.”