Conan gets show on TBS

April 13, 2010 at 12:16a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The late-night guessing game is over, with a startling twist: Conan O’Brien is choosing TBS as his future talk-show home.

Expected to debut in November, the as-yet-untitled show will return O’Brien to the air after an absence that began in January when he left NBC, his employer of 17 years.

O’Brien’s new program will air Mondays through Thursdays at 11 p.m. Eastern, which will shift “Lopez Tonight,” starring George Lopez, to midnight. O’Brien’s show will originate from Los Angeles, where he moved from New York for his unsuccessful stint hosting “The Tonight Show.” And the second half of his show will face off against Jay Leno, who now hosts “Tonight.”

TBS said that talks with O’Brien accelerated last week after Lopez called O’Brien to ask him to come aboard.

“I can’t think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as my lead-in. It’s the beginning of a new era in late-night comedy,” Lopez said in a statement released by TBS.

There’s a seemingly ironic ring to the time change for Lopez, who became the first Latino to host a nighttime talk show on a major network when his TBS show debuted last fall. O’Brien rejected NBC’s effort to move him to a later slot to make way for Leno. This dispute led to O’Brien’s abrupt exit.

“Until George Lopez called Conan last Wednesday, Conan would not have even considered a deal at TBS that would have uprooted Lopez,” said a person close to the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to discuss that part of the negotiations. The deal was signed Friday, the person said.

O’Brien left NBC in January after hosting “The Tonight Show” for just eight months, as his ratings plunged from those of his longtime “Tonight” predecessor, Leno, who then reclaimed the hour. Until last June, O’Brien had followed Leno as host of “Late Night” since 1993.

After giving O’Brien “Tonight,” NBC sought to keep Leno on board with a prime-time show that quickly flopped. An attempt to move O’Brien to a post-midnight slot drew O’Brien’s ire, and he walked away with a $32 million settlement package. Although that put him in play for other networks, the deal barred him from appearing on TV until September.

Monday’s surprise announcement hit only hours before O’Brien was to start a two-month, nationwide comedy tour. The news also laid to rest persistent reports that he was likely to land at the Fox network.