Conan O'Brien Gets $45 Million to Leave The Tonight Show

Late night "Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien who had been trading jokes with Jay Leno about their mutual contract dispute with NBC has agreed to accept a forty-five million dollar buyout of his contract.

What Was NBC Thinking?

This unprecedented move by a major network rescues the NBC affiliate network from losing millions in ad revenue. Conan whose audience has been averaging about a million and a half viewers per episode was losing out to "The David Letterman Show". David's show was capturing in excess of four million viewers.

Ex Tonight Show host Jay Leno, who for seventeen years prior to Conan, was leading the late night show hosts with almost five and a half million viewers before being moved to a 10pm prime time slot to make room for Conan to take over the "Tonight Show".

Where Will Conan End Up Now?

Conan who is extremely funny and a force to be reckoned with in the future, suddenly winds up without a show airing.

ABC who has "Nightline" and "The Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in late night slots said no thank you to Conan. Then the ultimate insult from FOX who has no late night show says no way. Of course CBS is out because that is home to "The David Letterman Show". So it looks like CoCo (his followers nicknamed him) will be sentenced to hard labor on the highly competitive cable networks with smaller markets.

So What Does Conan Do with the $45 Million?

Well, first he paid out $12 million to his loyal staff who also find themselves out in the cold thanks to the huge management mistake made by NBC. Next he will take some time off while his agent and manager look for a deal.

After all what good is a funny guy with no audience?

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/34970887 Dated 1/21/10