Brian Lowry, writing for Variety, assesses the late night TV situation insofar as it relates to Jay Leno's status. I think he's right that Leno holds all the cards but won't do anything to undermine NBC. I think he's right (I know he's right) that there are folks high up at the network wishing they weren't contractually obligated to either replace Jay with Conan O'Brien or give Conan a huge check. I doubt they'll renege on the switchover or that Leno would stay if it looked at all like something unethical had been done.
This may be one of those situations where speculation from a distance is fruitless because we don't know all the details. Apparently, O'Brien's contract specifies a huge penalty payment if he doesn't take over The Tonight Show. But is there a clause that would allow NBC to delay it under certain circumstances or for certain lesser sums? Would that huge penalty payment contractually obligate him to continue at 12:35 or would he be free to take the check and go to Fox? Does Lorne Michaels still have some sort of contractual arrangement to be involved in NBC late night on weeknights as he once did? Has NBC secretly been talking to Jon Stewart or someone else who'd matter in this situation? More to the point, is Leno — who admits to having the attention-span of a gerbil — even all that interested in staying in a talk show situation or does he have some other project he'd prefer? We don't know a lot of things that might impact how this all plays out.
A friend of mine in the business, back during the Leno/Letterman nastiness, had an idea of how to divide up the baby. Put The Tonight Show back to 90 minutes. Make it all-new, six nights a week with no reruns at 11:35. Have Jay and one staff do the show from Los Angeles on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Have Dave and another staff do the show from New York on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. Follow it every night with some permutation of Late Night or the show Carson Daly's doing now, then run a Tonight Show rerun from two weeks back but with the hosts reversed. (If Jay hosted the earlier live Tonight Show, you run a Dave rerun and vice-versa.) I wonder if anyone at NBC is thinking about something like this for 2009.