It's being reported that Piers Morgan is leaving his CNN show and I'm seeing a flurry of assumptions and speculations that Jay Leno will wind up in that slot. I have not been good lately at predicting what Mr. Leno would so…but then, neither have some of his closest associates. One of them told me a few months ago that Jay was quite open to the idea of another late night talk show (he apparently is not); that he would not close the door on that possibility (he has); and that Jay would not make any announcement about his future until after he'd done his last Tonight Show (he did).
This person also told me that Leno blames Jeff Zucker — former head guy at NBC, now at CNN — for the whole mess with Conan and would never go to CNN as long as he was there. Is this person right about this? I dunno…but with or without Zucker in the mix, I'm thinking we will not see Leno hosting a new program on CNN. The audience isn't there and the budgets aren't there. If Jay did want to do an hour a week, there are places he could go and do much better in both those categories. I mean if, as he said, any other late night show would be a step down from The Tonight Show, imagine what a series on CNN would be.
Jay does seem to want to transition to the role of Elder Statesman of Comedy. I don't see how a CNN show gets him there. Also, doing a live show on Friday nights would cut into his beloved stand-up gigs. I just don't see him being interested.
The guy CNN oughta put in that time slot is Jake Tapper…which is probably the main reason they won't. Hey, maybe Keith Olbermann is available. They could have him host a show then and they could put a little countdown clock in the corner, ticking off the minutes until he quits or is fired. Or they could just install Ryan Seacrest as host. Eventually, he'll host everything so why not get this one out of the way now?