Late Show shakedown

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's official. As tentatively announced 4 years ago, Jay Leno will be replaced next year on the Tonight Show by Conan O'Brian. Replacing Conan on the Late Night Show will be....drumroll....Jimmy Fallon. :yawn:

I dunno, Fallon might be funny. He was once capable of making me laugh, and at least as a late show host, he's SUPPOSED to look at the camera and laugh at his own jokes. I'll watch.

And it'll of course be fascinating to see what Conan does to appeal to the 11:30 audience. There's always the potential for disaster when someone who's perceived as "edgy" (though Conan hasn't done anything truly "edgy" in years) transitions to a more mainstream demographic (witness Craig Kilborn's move from basic cable to broadcast).

And then there's the question of what Leno will do. He's not likely to want to retire. You can bet Fox will want to throw money at him, but they can only off an 11:00 timeslot, which isn't really desirable. The most likely scenario I heard was that ABC might be willing to dump Nightline and put Leno on at 11:30. But if they give him an hour, that would push Jimmy Kimmel back from 12:00 to 12:30, which might prompt him to go talk to Fox about that 11:00 slot.

Man, it doesn't feel like all that long ago we were all on the edge of our seat watching Jay and Dave duke it out for Carson's spot. You know, only 16 years.