NBC to end prime-time Leno show

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — NBC said Sunday it decided to pull the plug on the Jay Leno experiment when some affiliate stations considered dropping the nightly prime-time show, and the network is waiting to hear if Leno and “Tonight” host Conan O’Brien accept its new late-night TV plans.

NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin said that “The Jay Leno Show” at 10 p.m. EST will end with the Feb. 12 beginning of the Winter Olympics, which will air in the prime-time hours, including Leno’s slot.

NBC wants to begin airing Leno’s show at 11:35 p.m. after the Olympics end Feb. 28, but with a half-hour show, Gaspin said.

The plan calls for O’Brien to retain his job with “Tonight” but at the later hour of 12:05 a.m. EST, Gaspin said. Also in the mix is Jimmy Fallon and his “Late Night.” Fallon’s show would be pushed a half-hour later as well, to 1:05 a.m. EST.

“My goal is to keep Jay, Conan and Jimmy as our late-night lineup,” Gaspin said, adding later that they “have the weekend to think about it” and discussions with them will resume today.

He said the proposal gives Leno what’s important to him — telling jokes at a later hour — and O’Brien his top priority, retaining “Tonight.”

“I hope and expect that before the Olympics begin, we’ll have everything set. I can’t imagine we won’t have everything in place before then,” Gaspin told a meeting of the Television Critics Association.

Both Leno and O’Brien made comedic hay out of the issue last week. Leno joked in his monologue that NBC was working on a solution in which all parties would be treated unfairly, while O’Brien wisecracked that he and Leno would be thrown by the network into a pit to fight and “the one that crawls out gets to leave NBC.”

Gaspin said he’s “perfectly fine” with their on-air remarks “if that’s how they blow off steam and that’s how they’re comfortable.”

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and its “Weekend Update” with Seth Meyers also got into the act.

“It was reported Thursday that in the wake of poor ratings for ‘The Jay Leno Show,’ NBC will move his show back to the 11:35 time slot, and then start Conan O’Brien’s ‘Tonight Show’ at midnight — though it’s a little weird to start the ‘Tonight Show’ at a time when it’s no longer tonight,” Meyers said Saturday.

Gaspin said that despite lower ratings for NBC at 10 p.m. compared with last year, the network was making money off the show.

But affiliates were upset that it was leading fewer viewers into their late news programs, costing them significant advertising revenue.