Jay Leno, politicians' favorite stop, gets new NBC show, time

This is just a quick tip about Jay Leno's apparent new job over at NBC.

Next summer "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" is scheduled to become "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," because he's taller and Jay's older audience has developed the habit of dying.

Jay's guest chair has been a regular stop for political guests for countless years, so candidates and their spouses can show they're human and have a self-deprecating sense of humor.

In fact, several such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Fred Thompson, actually announced their candidacies on the late-night program that gets some five million sleepy viewers nightly. Yes, even Rep. Ron Paul was there, too.

Since the recently-terminated Ted Koppel-Discovery Channel deal worked out so well for both sides, the iconic Leno has been making noises about jumping across to, say, ABC where hardly anyone laughs at "Nightline."

Now, according to our blogging brother Scott Collins over at Show Tracker, NBC seems to be working out a deal to give Leno a new show at 10 p.m.

This would a) keep the huge-chinned, huge moneymaker at NBC, b) deny the huge moneymaker to ABC or anyone else and c) make for a really cheap hour of new programming in primetime without all the expensive sirens, salaries and CPR stuff of, say, an "ER."

Scott's got the rest of the NBC stuff over here.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Comments

[Jeff Balla]

Does that mean they're getting rid of ER? Or will Jay only be on four nights a week?