The Late Shift II: Talons out; Fallon in

Jimmy Fallon, the guy best known for laughing at his own jokes on “Saturday Night Live” and an extremely and mercifully short movie career, is expected to replace Conan O’Brien on “Late Night” when Conan replaces Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” in 2009.

NBC created this predicament a while back when Conan’s contract was about to expire and, in order to keep him at the network, they promised him the 11:35 timeslot, with a whopping $40-million payout if the network were somehow to renege on the offer. Meanwhile, Jay Leno continues to garner extremely strong ratings in the timeslot, meaning NBC can do one of two things come 2009:

* Stick with Leno and pay Conan handsomely to go away to another network (Fox or maybe ABC – fare thee well, “Nightline”) and ply his trade there.

* Let Leno move to another network, where he’ll probably still pull better numbers than Conan.

Either way, NBC has shot itself in the foot.

Well, there’s another scenario, explicated by NBC co-chairmen Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, but even after they explained it during their Press Tour press conference, no one seemed to be sure what it was:

BEN SILVERMAN: We love Jay Leno, and we're very interested in -- we're beyond interested. We want him to stay at NBC for life. And we're talking to Jay all the time about what does he want to do, and what opportunities are there for him. And Marc and I are aggressively trying to come up with ideas that would make Jay happy.

QUESTION: But if you can follow my logic here, he's not going to be on "Tonight." He's probably not going to go later.

MARC GRABOFF: Sure.

QUESTION: Is bringing him to primetime something you're already talking to him about?

MARC GRABOFF: Primetime is a definite alternative, clearly, I mean, because you're absolutely right. In a scheduled world, where you have distinct dayparts, like primetime and late night, and people that tune into their shows at set times, yes, that is something that we're talking about. Now, again, Conan doesn't do his show every week, 52 weeks a year. There's a whole number of ideas -- I think, as Ben said, the point is we want Jay Leno to be with NBC for as long as -- forever, if possible. And I think Jay would want to do that.

QUESTION: Marc, you left the door open by mentioning that Conan doesn't work 52 weeks a year. Are you suggesting that there would be some sort of job-share with Jay Leno?

MARC GRABOFF: No, no. "The Tonight Show" will be the Conan O'Brien "Tonight Show" with Conan O'Brien.

QUESTION: Would Jay be available for some of those weeks that he wouldn't be working? Is that what you're suggesting?

MARC GRABOFF: No, I'm not. We haven't had any of those conversations, nor, most likely, will we because when Conan takes over "The Tonight Show," he will take over "The Tonight Show."

Hope that’s clear.

We’re back where we were when Johnny Carson was preparing to retire – two guys want one timeslot; nothing else will suffice for either and the loser will take a chunk out of NBC’s audience when he moves to another network. The biggest loser, of course, will be anyone who tunes into Fallon’s show. Somewhere, Tom Snyder is having a good, robust laugh.