How much longer can Conan stay at NBC?

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This article was published 14/01/2010 (5833 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PASADENA — Conan O’Brien has stated his intention to leave. The question now is how long will NBC allow him to stay?

A difficult situation is quickly becoming untenable, as the (for now, but probably not for long) host of The Tonight Show is now using the once-proud NBC franchise to heap trash-talk upon the network on which it airs.

And one can’t help but wonder how much longer the corporate bosses at the Peacock Network are going to allow such nasty monologue skewering to continue.

The betting here is the answer will be measured in minutes and hours, not days and weeks.

Even as media types and fans were scrambling to digest the content of O’Brien’s crisply-worded statement on Tuesday, in which he declared he will not participate in the "destruction" of The Tonight Show, rumours began circulating that NBC was hastily assembling a roster of guest hosts to take O’Brien’s place on the show.

And with the red-coiffed comic using his Tonight Show monologue to unleash an endless string of bitter zingers like "Welcome to NBC, where our new motto is ‘No longer just screwing up prime-time," that can’t come as hugely surprising news.

On Tuesday, for the second night in a row, O’Brien used his NBC-financed platform to take shots at NBC, ranging from simple setup-punchline jokes to a bit in which one of Tonight‘s African American writers, Deon Cole, compared NBC to a "pimp" and its late-night hosts to "ho’s", to a Deal or No Deal gag in which O’Brien and Howie Mandel opened a series of briefcases containing O’Brien’s post-talk-show career options (the final case: "Two tickets to see Jay Leno perform stand-up at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas").

Since they’re providing his studio space and still paying his sizable salary, you’ve got to believe that NBC’s top-brass folks don’t find this current Conan incarnation very amusing.

Which is why it makes sense that NBC will likely move to address the situation sooner rather than later.

And as tensions escalate between the network and The Tonight Show‘s current host, the guy who stands to benefit most from all of this — Jay Leno, who, one way or another, seems destined to move back to the 10:35 p.m. timeslot he occupied for the 17 years of his Tonight tenure — hasn’t been saying much.

Leno took a few shots at NBC on his Monday edition of The Jay Leno Show, but on Tuesday he mostly steered clear of the late-night kerfuffle and made no mention at all of O’Brien’s headline-grabbing statement.

While he plays it cool on the air, Leno must surely be steaming hot about the damage this situation will do to his public image. Always a populist comedian, Leno will inevitably be painted as the bad guy in the sure-to-be-messy resolution of the NBC-Conan spat. Even if he does get it all — the 10:35 slot and the Tonight Show title — Leno will be perceived by a large segment of the viewing population as a whiner whose unwillingness to take prime-time defeat gracefully cost O’Brien his job.

And one can’t help wondering if that’s a label that even Leno won’t accept. Is it possible that in its ham-handed attempt to keep all its hosts in late-night, NBC could lose both O’Brien and Leno?

Stranger things have happened. Like, even this week.

From this couchbound observer’s perspective, this much seems absolutely certain: Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show won’t be sharing title billing for very much longer. He may have hit the nail right on the head with the opening line of his Tuesday-night monologue:

"Thank you very much. My name is Conan O’Brien, and I may soon be available for children’s parties."

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca