Will Jay Leno Retire in 2009?
Three years ago “NBC” executives announced that “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno would retire in 2009 and his replacement would be Conan O’Brien. A recent piece in “The Los Angeles Times” rumored that Leno is now having second thoughts.
NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker recently reiterated during a Q&A session that the plan is still set and O’Brien will take over for Leno in 2009.
The deal was put together three years ago in order to keep Conan O’Brien, the host of Late Night from jumping ship for another network. The strategy worked and O’Brien has been quietly cooling his heels. The recent Leno jitters are likely to be causing him some angst.
Zucker indicated that NBC would like to find Leno another position at the network and is currently having that conversation with the TV host. Jay, 57, with 15 years under his belt is not planning to head off into the sunset like the shows previous host Johnny Carson.
Back in 1992 the mood was tense as NBC negotiated with both Leno and David Letterman to replace Carson. The blood letting that ensued was legend. The network will likely bend over backwards to find Leno another creative outlet so that he will turn the reigns over to O’Brien without making waves.
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Filed under: Celebrities
Let O’Brien go, and get Craig Ferguson, who’s a lot funnier and actually seems to care about his guests. O’Brien should go to CBS and succeed Letterman; these guys are two of a kind– snide, shallow, self-absorbed, and too ironic to care about other people.
If NBC makes Leno retire in 2009, I hope another network takes him, he is MUCH funnier than O’Brien, Letterman, Ferguson and Kimmel. I will not watch NBC late night if Leno retires, or if NBC makes him retire as stated in another article. I think he should stay on a few more years, he is the “King” of late night TV and I think it will hurt NBC’s ratings severely if he leaves!!
God Jay DON’T GO !!!
Well I think Jay is good but conan is pretty good too. Jay would be great in a game show.
Jimmy Fallon to replace Conan WOW that is going to be interesting.
Conan O’Brien is a complete idiot - not funny at all. The Tonight Show will surely suffer when he takes over. I agree Jay should flee to another network, and reprise the Tonight Show there.
If Jay Leno retires…late night will never be the same. There is no replacement for him.They might as well
plan to start showing reruns of Magnum PI, Law and Order, or what ever.
Thats alot more entertaining than Conan O’brian
When Carson retired everyone though no one could take over. Eventually Leno became huge. Personally I find him very predictable. The only reason I watch is because he has better guests than letterman. Conan is unpredictable and halarious in my opinion but I do see how some people could be offended by his humour. I am curious to see how well he’ll do in the earlier slot.
when leno goes there will be no one to watch.
conan just thinks he’s funny but he actually sucks big time..
Conan is the man! Leno is not bad but he is not as funny as Conan.
It doesn’t matter if Leno retires or not, Letterman is the king of late night, everyone else is a pale imitation. Zip’s take on Dave is what’s really ironic — after all it was Dave who cared enough about his writers to sign a deal with them before anybody else did. And Dave paid his striking writers from the day they walked out to the day they reported back to work 2 January 2008. Who’s “too ironic to care about people” now?