Conan O’Brien’s $30 million-plus divorce from NBC reminds me of that classic line from ABC’s “The Odd Couple” about the word “assume”(Felix: “When you assume, you make an ass of you and me!”).
So let’s not jump the gun and, well, assume that Conan now passes “Go” and jumps directly to Fox to host a late-night talk show next fall and avenge his NBC tormentors.
Yes, it could happen, especially with Fox execs strongly endorsing the idea and the network still hungry to exorcise the ghost of 1993’s “The Chevy Chase Show” and make a late-night statement.
And, yes, it would be great drama (or is that comedy?) to see Conan back in late night, battling Jay and Dave for viewers — especially on NBC’s dime (since they’d still be paying a chunk of his salary).
But it’s not that easy.
For starters, Fox would have to move a lot of programming furniture around to accommodate a new late-night show and spend millions to build Conan a new studio equipped with the latest equipment — then millions more to promote the show.
And it could take months, perhaps even a year, to clear the decks and convince local affiliates that a show hosted by Conan, who couldn’t cut the ratings mustard on NBC, would be better than syndicated repeats of “The Office” and “Seinfeld” — both of which make lots of money, thank you very much.
Don’t underestimate the affiliates; it was their NBC-station brethren, after all, who forced network execs to yank the little-watched “Jay Leno Show” at 10 p.m. because it was killing their 11 p.m. newscasts — and, with that, their main revenue source. Not good.
So now Jay’s back at 11:35, and here we are, with Conan looking for a new home which may or may not turn out to be Fox.
Just don’t assume anything.