Not to mention Conan seems a way more apropos fit with Fox than with NBC.

How much success can Conan expect to have if he got an 11:30 Fox show? He's already getting beat by Letterman and we have to expect Leno will quickly retake his #1 position. Wouldn't Conan be a distant third?

Conan seems screwed. NBC wants Jay back at 11:30. I doubt Jay will accept less than a one hour show, so the deal being reported of Jay being on from 11:30 to midnight and Conan being on from midnight to 1am seems unlikely to me.

yeah if he moves he will likely be third behind those two, but I don't think he will accept going back to that time slot. He has been waiting for this time slot for several years as well.

Conan should be pretty desirable for Fox though since he has the ideal demographic for advertisers. Or maybe he goes crazy and goes to comedy central or something.

As much as I hate Jay's show Conan at an earlier hour sucks. All the funny characters are gone and most episodes they have the stupid twitter segment. The last funny show I remember is when Norm was on which was hilarious.

FOX would offer Conan the 11pm time period to get the jump on Leno/Letterman. I think it's unclear how well Leno will do once he gets back to 11:30 (his lead over Letterman has been shrinking over the years, and Letterman is in a strong ratings period right now).

-Al

does anyone know how much Conan gets paid for hosting the tonight show?. I read somewhere he used to get 8 mil a year for late night a few years back..

It REALLY bothers me how ugly that blue background is, and the fact that they dress him in a nearly identical blue shirt almost every night. Just another huge fail on a long list of fails lately for NBC...

That being said, this guy is hilarious and I'll be DVRing his show no matter what channel he's on.

Not really sure what he makes per year.

I was talking with my mom yesterday about the switch. She said she heard on TV that Conan has some kind of clause in his contract that will pay him $45 mill if he's not the host of the Tonight Show for a certain amount of time. She didn't hear or they didn't say what the time period is though.

I believe Conan gets paid $25 Mil a year and has a $40 Mil "Buyout" if hes not hosting a show from 1135-1235.

I think Conan can do well on Fox. He'd have a lot of buzz (I think Leno is kind of the villain in this scenario) and Fox would likely give him a decent amount of creative control which would make the show a lot better.

Agreed.

I never watch any of the late night shows but if Conan goes to Fox I will be sure to dvr him for a few weeks to see a potentially edgier show.

Conan on Comedy Central with a Daily Show, Colbert Report lead in? Or as a lead in to them at 10? That'd be pretty sweet.

Daily show/Colbert lead in, I would guess. That would be an awesome combo. Advertisers would probably drool over that target audience, and for 2 full hours!

That would be a good idea if it wouldn't take up Comedy Central's entire yearly talent budget to get Conan. Cable can't afford a dude like Conan. Forget it. Even Fox could hire him and make money in third place. That seems more likely.

Everyone in the late night business got screwed when Leno decided that he still wanted to party. He was supposed to retire and do the occasional stand up show and instead he came back to the talk show world and skewed plans for his departure that had been in place for years and years. Not that I would ever really knock Jay because I think he's a good guy and everything but NBC was so scared that they might lose him to another network that they basically let him ruin their network. No idea how this shakes out though.

So Leno is the Brett Favre of late night television?

Leno:O'Brien :: Favre:Rodgers

Not to be too much of a nit - but the top-rated Cable networks make far more $ than the Big 4 Broadcast Networks due to MVPD subscriptions fees (so the revenue is also far more predictable)... so a strong Cable network from an economics standpoint is well positioned to make a run at big talent (though I understand your overall point that Cable works on tighter overall budgets, though this is more driven by overall volume of programming - on a scripted episodic basis, B'cst Networks and Cable are pretty close).

The upshot of this is that Comedy Central (which is a Top 10 cable network in A18-49, out of the 75 rated basic cable networks) could afford Conan (Stewart's contract is $10M+ IIRC) and from a strategic standpoint might consider a big splash acqusition. Whether they'd ever want to make a run at him or not is of course unclear, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

FOX has stated their interest publicly - the issue here is their station affiliates - FOX would like to offer Conan an 11pm time slot, but the time period is currently occupied by their local stations, not the Network - and these local stations would likely make more monies by continue to air whatever syndicated stuff they are already airing, vs. agreeing to clear Conan for the Fox Network.

So unless FOX has an automatic trigger for the stations to clear a new Late Night talk show in their affiliation contracts (which I doubt they do), they'd have to convince the local stations to pick Conan up, again, based on the economics for the stations, a difficult sell for FOX.

It's entirely possible that Conan (if he wants to continue to work in broadcast televisino) is stuck at NBC. Which may make cable more appealing as well.

Well, Conan got screwed, but I'd say that Letterman (also in the "late night business") was pretty happy to see the guy who crushed him in ratings for 10+ years leave for primetime.

-Al

I hope they do find clearance for him because imo this would be a perfect time for Conan to go to Fox. They've got their two big shows on now, 24 and American Idol, that they could use to promote the crap out of him and provide him a good lead-in.

can't wait to hear what Conan has to say tonight about this mess now that the real NBC plan has came out. Dude must be furious.

Al, htf do you know so much about this?

I agree - think he'd be a great fit at FOX - it's basically where he started his career as well (The Simpsons), and I'm sure he'd get a very favorable deal w/r/t creative control. Unfortunately, the local tv stations economics are extremely challenged right now - it would be a tough sell to convince them to clear Conan and move their syndicated product (e.g. 2.5 Men, whatever it is they are airing), as they would likely make a good deal more $ vs. picking Conan up.

I work in TV distribution strategy.

-Al

Taso, oh also, everything I said above has been reported on in some fashion over the past couple days, as well. Nothing really new or "insider-y" or anything.

-Al

interesting posts Al, thanks.

TSC - no problem, I am (as is everyone in the industry) following the story pretty closely, and speculating along with everyone else. To clarify (if this was confusing) - the reason say 2.5 Men at 11pm on a FOX station would make more money for the local station than Conan O' Brien Show at 11pm is because in a local station program, the station keeps and sells all the ad units. On a Network show, the local station and Network split the inventory. So, even if 2.5 Men was lower rated than Conan, station would likely make more money cause it sells more ad units.

-Al

Wait so they are going to cut Conan in half but still leave Fallon's late night spot untouched? ugh Conan is getting so ****ed for this **** and he is by far the best of the three...I'd argue Leno is worse than Fallon at this point.