Jay Leno has confirmed reports he could be heading back to “The Tonight Show.”
The funnyman addressed NBC’s late night shake up during Monday’s “The Jay Leno Show,” and he revealed that if Conan O’Brien leaves his job as “Tonight Show” host, NBC executives have offered Jay his old job back.
“They [said to me], ‘If he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back?’” Jay recounted to his “Jay Leno Show” audience on Monday night about his conversations with the NBC execs. “I go, ‘Yeah, I’ll take the show back… if that’s what he wants to do… This way, we keep our people working… So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure.”
Jay added, however, that through the situation with NBC, which he went into great detail about on his Monday show, Conan has been courteous.
“Through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy,” Jay told his audience. “I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air.”
Jay also explained how it came about that Conan was promised “The Tonight Show” years ago, while Jay was still on top.
”[In] 2004, I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, ‘Listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show,’” Jay recounted. “I said, ‘Well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘We know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’”
The host went on to explain that he asked NBC to wait until he slipped to No. 2 in the ratings and then fire him, but he said the NBC exec told him the decision had already been made.
“Don’t blame Conan O’Brien,” Jay continued on Monday’s show. “Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’”
Jay said that when it came time for Conan to take over “The Tonight Show,” he still had 6-8 months left on his own contract with NBC.
Jay said he asked the network to release him from his contract, but they said, “We want to keep you here,” he explained.
He went on to say that his primetime show was NBC’s idea and they told him, “We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00.”
For Jay personally, he said it “didn’t seem like a good idea at the time,” but they allowed him to keep his staff of 175 people and promised him two years on the air.
As for the latest shake up, which NBC announced last Sunday – a move of “The Jay Leno Show” to 11:35 PM and a plea to Conan to move “The Tonight Show” to 12:05 AM – Jay said NBC asked him if he would do the move and they assured him Conan would be OK with that.
“I said, ‘OK, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but OK. What do you want to do with Conan?’ ‘We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps ‘The Tonight Show’ does all that, he gets the whole hour.’ I said, ‘OK, you think Conan will go for that?’ ‘Yes, yes.’… I said ‘OK,’ shake hands. That’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal,” Jay said.
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