NBC has announced that Jay Leno's final Tonight Show will air February 6, 2014 though he and much of his staff will continue to be paid through September. There had previously been rumors that since the show's getting great ratings and they do have to pay all those folks 'til September, they might postpone the switchover for a while. Looks like they aren't going to do that. It might be because they're stubbornly insisting with sticking to the timetable they worked out before they knew how Jay's numbers would go. More likely, they want to put some distance between the date of Jay's last show on NBC and the first night he might do of some competing show elsewhere.
In interviews, NBC Entertainment chief Bob Greenblatt is stressing that the network wants to make some sort of deal to keep Leno in the "NBC family" after he's no longer part of Tonight. I doubt they're thinking, "We'd better keep him under contract in case we need to reinstall him at 11:35." More likely, they just don't want the competition that would cut into Jimmy Fallon's ratings…and maybe make NBC look foolish for letting Jay go.
That they haven't been able to announce a new relationship with Jay already suggests a number of things, starting with the fact that they may not have anything they can offer the guy that he'd want. Jay famously loves the idea of doing a nightly monologue before a big audience. That was the premise behind offering him a 10 PM show and later the half-hour one at 11:35. They aren't going to tender either one of those again…so where would they put him? If Jay had the slightest interest of doing occasional prime-time specials a la Bob Hope, they could have made that deal long ago.
More likely, Jay just wants to see what kind of offers he'll get. We don't know the details of his contract but most likely, he can't negotiate with other networks until X months before the end date of the pact. This is more or less standard in contracts. They want to lock you up for the specified period plus they have a preferential position for further negotiation. Six months is fairly common…but we don't know if Leno has a fairly common deal. At this point, he is doubtlessly getting approaches from other parties saying, "Hey, when you're free, we're real interested." Whether any of them will actually come up with acceptable offers is a lot less certain. When you're a hit in show business, your competition almost always says, "Hey, wish you were on our team. Let's talk when you're available."
Given his ratings, Jay will be in a great position. Given his age, he won't be. I know people in the business who are sure there'll be a feeding frenzy from Fox, various syndicators and other parties to give him a new late night show. I know others who think there's no way he'll get anything like that again. One says, "His career will begin to resemble Howie Mandel's — game shows, panels, etc." I have no idea what he'll be offered…and no idea what he'd accept. All I know is the guy ain't gonna retire…and I'm dying to see where he goes next.