The NBC late-night picture is getting clearer. It’s Jay Leno for at least two years, Greg Kinnear for the future, and Conan O’Brien . . . for now.
The network helped solidify that image by giving Leno a multiyear extension on his contract as the host of “The Tonight Show”-a contract option it didn’t have to exercise until March. As Leno acknowledged, the early pick-up represents a big change in his fortunes since July: “Last time we all got together, I was ready to be fired.”
Long-term job security is still not certain, not as long as Leno continues to trail both David Letterman’s “Late Show” and Ted Koppel’s “Nightline.”
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But Leno feels he and his show have turned a corner: The show’s improved, and he’s getting back to doing the kind of jokes that got him the job in the first place.
“We got through a rocky period. Now the ratings have stabilized. Now the trick is to get them higher than the competition.”
That will be some trick. But even if he can’t catch Letterman, the game is not entirely lost. “Both shows,” Leno says, “are making a tremendous amount of money for the networks.”
Next month, that late-night game gets a new player: “Talk Soup” star Greg Kinnear, who takes over “Later” from Bob Costas in February. Though the show will retain its single-guest format, it will be reshaped for Kinnear’s more comic sensibilities: Comedy segments will be added, along with a small studio audience.
The show also will move from New York to Los Angeles, where it will be taped on a same-day basis.
Kinnear already has been billed as NBC’s “hot new late-night guy.” The question is, how long do you leave someone that hot in “Later’s” relatively cold 12:30 time slot?
The buzz says it’s just a matter of time before Kinnear moves up an hour as a replacement for the struggling Conan O’Brien.
Kinnear makes light of such suggestions.
“I’ll do this show for probably about two weeks, maybe three, then I take over Conan at the end of February. I’ll have Jay’s job by March, and I should be sitting in for Tom Brokaw come June.”
Rumors, however, don’t die that easily, so Kinnear has a more serious response, as well. “There have been no discussions. I just want to try and get this one on the road.”