conan is seriously getting raped (not literally)

Variety says this morning that Jay Leno has accepted an offer from NBC to return to 11:30 for a 30 minute show, called ‘the Jay Leno Show’, focusing mainly on a monologue and one guest, and that the show will begin after the Winter Olympics in about 6 weeks.

Deadline Hollywood adds that NBC does have the right to be this god dam dumb if they choose.

NBC has the contractual right to start The Tonight Show as late as 12:05 AM, which it sometimes does for sports or news. So if NBC gives Jay Leno back the 11:35 PM slot, and calls it The Jay Leno Show, and keeps Conan on Tonight, the network incurs no penalties.

If Conan can live with this bullshit, he will move to midnight, but otherwise ‘the Tonight Show’ will be unchanged.

And Broadcasting and Cable reported last night that NBC can simply take Conan off the air completely and replace him with Leno if they want, they just have to keep paying him.

If Conan, rightfully, tells NBC to suck his dick, he can approach Fox who has no late night programming and ABC, who would have to move ‘Nightline’ and Jimmy Kimmel.

If Conan leaves or NBC decides to take him off the air, Leno will again host a one-hour “Tonight Show with Jay Leno”.

Jeff Zucker is the man to blame for all this.  He’s skillfully fucked up in new and imaginative ways since being named Head of Programming in 2000, but this could be his masterpiece.  Mostly known for his unique ability to never do anything right, NBC should of course fire him, then drag him outside and load him in a cannon and fire him into a wall, but instead they’ve prmoted him several times, eventually to CEO in 2005 and then to President and CEO in 2007.  No one in Hollywood has been given this much as a reward for so little since Cash Warren got to fuck Jessica Alba.