NBC Bids Conan Adieu, Not Much Really Left To Watch on NBC

...Unless you like watching fat people in not-very-funny situations (I prefer funny fatties) on The Biggest Loser, NBC's only successful show currently. NBC lags behind every network in almost all timeslots in primetime except for during airings of Biggest Loser and recently, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Biggest Loser appeals to the people-who-like-watching-fat-people-in-agony segment of middle America, which also coincides with Jay Leno's demographic.

Conan reached a deal early on Thursday morning (around 4am EST) with NBC that will give him $32 million to walk away from the Tonight Show, not appear on or host another show for a year, and not degrade NBC in general. The deal also includes $12 million to be distributed amongst O'Brien's staff of writers, performers, and production staff.

The deal means that Jay Leno will retake the Tonight Show starting next week and Conan gets to go on a vacation until a year is up. At that point, it has been speculated that another network such as Fox will snap him up and give him back a 11:35 EST show. The initial divide of course started because Jay Leno's 10PM time slot variety show was cancelled due to poor ratings. NBC execs said they would give Jay's show another try at 11:30 for a half hour following the news and bumping the Tonight Show back to 12:05am afterwards.

O'Brien, who has hosted The Tonight Show for just seven months, objected to the change. He said in a Jan. 12 letter addressed to "People of Earth" that moving the show back would "seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting." NBC decided they could do without Conan (I somehow doubt it) and decided it would be a better course of action to lose Conan than Leno. Read more here.