Ten folks have written me since the previous post to ask what I think the odds are that Letterman's replacement will be either Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien. I'd say they're about the same as the odds of his replacement being Chiang Kai-shek or me.
Both Leno and O'Brien, talented though they may be, are Old News…of no use to a network that's looking for a guy (or it could be a gal) who can capture the youth market and establish a franchise there for another decade or two. Leno might get better ratings than his competitor for a little while…but for the long run? I also don't think Leno would do it.
Moreover, networks don't like picking up another network's discards. They do it very rarely and never for something as important as this. It's just embarrassing for a network to admit it couldn't find and groom anyone who'd be as good as a guy NBC got rid of.
Conan, especially. Apart from a few weeks there when America was tuning in to watch him trash NBC for firing him, when was the last time Conan O'Brien demonstrated any ability to attract a big audience? His 12:35 show at NBC did fine when he had Leno as his lead-in…but the last year or so of it, he was getting tied (usually) or beaten (sometimes) by Craig Ferguson, who had a show with a much worse lead-in, very few Big Star guests and an operating budget about a fourth as large. I do not believe that in 2004, NBC would have promised O'Brien The Tonight Show in 2009 if they'd imagined what his ratings on Late Night would have been in 2008. The network probably deserved some points for not reneging on that deal.
Since O'Brien went on TBS, his ratings have been acceptable but way below what he and the network hoped to achieve. Does anyone really think that's the guy on whom CBS is going to bet its entire late night schedule?
I don't know who they have in mind other than that it's probably someone young enough to do the show for 20 years if he or she clicks and someone who's comfortable with social media and the Internet. And like I said, it would not shock me if they already have a handshake and maybe a contract.