Lights out, Conan.
Late-night funnyman Conan O’Brien’s last night as host of “The Tonight Show” will likely be next Friday, allowing Jay Leno to reclaim his old time slot.
“Conan does not currently plan on doing any more new shows after next week,” a source told People magazine’s Web site this afternoon.
TMZ.com reported today that Leno struck a deal with NBC to reclaim the 11:35 p.m. to 12:35 a.m. “Tonight Show” slot.
If Jan. 22 is O’Brien’s final live broadcast, the show will have ended two weeks before NBC’s scheduled preemption for its 2010 Winter Olympics coverage.
O’Brien’s departure means that Leno will return to “The Tonight Show” desk at 11:35 p.m. in a deal the long-time host finalized today with the Peacock network, TMZ.com reported.
Under the contract Leno had been working under, TMZ.com reported that he had been guaranteed the 10 p.m. hour. By moving Leno back to late-night, NBC was in breach of his contract and needed to negotiate a new deal.
Although NBC declined to comment on the latest developments, the network unveiled a list of new shows and a comedy produced by Jerry Seinfeld that will take over the bulk of the slots soon to be vacated by Leno.
NBC announced today that the new drama “Parenthood” and the relocated “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victim Units” will fill three slots. Another will go to the comedy panel series “The Marriage Ref” from Seinfeld. “Dateline NBC” will fill another slot.
The new lineup will debut after the Olympics on Feb. 28.
The bombshell reports come two days after O’Brien released a statement saying that he would not go along with the network’s plan for him to host a relocated “Tonight Show” at 12:05 a.m., following “The Jay Leno Show” at 11:35 p.m.
“I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is [The Tonight Show’s] destruction,” O’Brien had said in the statement.
On Wednesday night’s show, O’Brien took a swipe at Leno, saying, “Hosting ‘The Tonight Show’ has been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for me — and I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life, unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.”
Network executives have been fighting a losing, two-front war since giving O’Brien the “Tonight” job.
Not only has Leno’s 10 p.m. show been weak in the ratings, but CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” has consistently been beating O’Brien.
In the 10 p.m. slot, NBC had nothing in development worth investing the millions it would take to rush to the air. So NBC pulled Leno, who replaced the legendary Johnny Carson, out of retirement and created a 10 p.m. “Tonight”-esque show to fill that slot without spending much money.
But “The Jay Leno Show” — while profitable to NBC — did not attract enough viewers to satisfy its affiliates, left holding the bag with an ineffective lead-in to their 11 p.m. newscasts.
O’Brien’s departure could usher a move to Fox, although he has denied that he is in negotiations with them.
“After only seven months, with my ‘Tonight Show’ in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule,” O’Brien said in Tuesday’s statement.
“I sincerely believe that delaying the ‘Tonight Show’ into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.”