FROM NEW YORK CITY, THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD: It generally seems that it's a foregone conclusion that
The Nighty-Night Show with CoCo will wind up on Fox, possibly as early as September 2010, but I think there's a different play which could be much more interesting. As soon as any contractual issues are resolved, Conan appears on
Late Show With David Letterman, where he and Dave make the following announcement:
- Effective September 2010, Late Show will no longer air a show taped earlier in the week on Fridays. Instead, there will be a new Late Show, taped on Friday, and hosted by Conan.
- Conan becomes Dave's permanent guest host when Dave takes vacation. (Both of these mirror the model that Carson used in the years before his departure.)
- Dave leaves the desk either in August 2011 or August 2012, handing over the show to Conan, who's given a long-term contract with timeslot guarantee.
- In the interim, Conan remains under contract with CBS/Viacom, and will do things like host awards shows, develop new sitcoms and other programming, and the like.
This lets Conan return to NYC (which he clearly never wanted to leave), gives a gigantic middle finger from both Dave and Conan to NBC, which they clearly relish, gives CBS a stable future in late night and allows them to youthen their image from the "Tiffany Network," and lets Letterman (at least potentially) go out on top as he deserves. Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts and other players there--Craig Ferguson was beating Conan at one point in the late night slots, and Viacom also has cable talent like Stewart and Colbert who may have their eye on the Letterman show, but if they could work it out, I think it would be a PR coup.
ETA: One thing I wasn't clear on here--what's critically important to this plan being even remotely plausible is for Letterman to be 100% on board with no bitterness whatsoever and to willingly be riding the pony off into the sunset. If there's any sense Dave's being forced out or doesn't want to go, it kills the idea.
