Revving up: Late-night Wars II

Not a sign of the Endtimes, nor necessarily of better days ahead, just a sign:

In his continuing search for hot properties, NBC’s Jeff Zucker floated a trial balloon in Jon Stewart’s direction.

Stewart’s signed with “The Daily Show” through the 2008 election. Based on the effort he puts into his interviews with politicians and authors, he seems to be enjoying his status as counterculture pundit. But, after a new President is elected – that is, if the current Administration can’t cook up a sinister plot to retain power – Stewart may figure that he’s had a good run and that the new leader won’t simply hand him comedy gold on a silver platter on a daily basis, and be ready to try something new.

Conveniently, something will be opening up in NBC’s late-night schedule in 2009, one way or the other. The network had previously announced that Conan O’Brien would replace Jay Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” then, but curiously, people continue to watch Leno in huge numbers. If O’Brien does replace him, Stewart could ease into O’Brien’s timeslot. On the other hand, NBC might decide to stick with Leno, whose genial buffoonery plays with heartland audiences better than O’Brien’s semi-edgy urban sensibility, and hand O’Brien $40 million to do nothing, which he invariably would do, and again his timeslot opens up. Bill Carter’s no doubt thinking sequel to his bestseller “The Late Shift,” which essayed the late-night-TV wars of the ’90s.

In keeping with our obsession with new NBC head Ben Silverman and his love of product placement in formerly respectable TV properties, and since NBC wasn’t one of the networks to reject the condom ad mentioned directly below, let us be the first to recommend “The Trojan Condoms® Jon Stewart Show.” Although those in the market for said product may not actually be watching TV at that hour.