2010 Tonight Show conflict

[20] That year, competing network Fox mounted an "extended, comprehensive campaign" to lure O'Brien away from NBC, citing his appeal from a younger late night demographic.

[20] News Corporation chairman and CEO Peter Chernin pursued O'Brien personally, taking him and executive producer Jeff Ross to dinner on several occasions.

[31] Zucker, along with top late-night executive Rick Ludwin, met with Leno in March at his Burbank studio to discuss the contract extension, and explained NBC's stance on handing over the show to O'Brien.

[43] Eventually, Leno began mulling over his options after Tonight, telling his staff that after the transition, they could move to another network like ABC (whose Disney lot was not far from their then-current Burbank studio).

[52] During a spring lunch meeting with Ross, NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol advised that O'Brien retire silly antics and focus more on pitching his show to middle America, which would involve stretching out his monologue.

[73] Against the wishes of several PR executives, Zucker authorized a press release proclaiming O'Brien "the New King of Late Night", a move that attracted ridicule.

[88] As the weeks wore on, producer Vickers noticed that NBC's plan—to save the best segments, such as Leno's signature "Headlines", for last in order to provide a strong lead-in for local news—was possibly hurting the program.

[92][93] Affiliates began to complain, and in addition to a domino effect on the local news, O'Brien, and his 12:30 am successor, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the disastrous ratings for Leno had damaged NBC's existing primetime lineups.

[96] Clearing the 10:00 pm time period for Leno also damaged relations with the producers of scripted shows that previously occupied that slot, such as Dick Wolf of Law & Order.

[100] Affiliates began calling the network to inquire about the show's fate,[101] and research analysis revealed O'Brien's drastically reduced median age for The Tonight Show—age 56 to 46—could possibly reflect that he was too "niche" for the earlier time.

[101] On November 6, NBC chairman Jeff Gaspin received an email from the sales division with a suggestion to cancel O'Brien and reinstate Leno as host of The Tonight Show.

The plan moved forward after confirmation that O'Brien's contract did not guarantee a strict 11:35 pm start time (a loophole included primarily to accommodate sports pre-emptions and specials such as the network's New Year coverage).

"[126] Polone viewed the move as a reactionary one by Zucker, concluding that he was acting in self-preservation, since network owner General Electric was in the process of negotiating the acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast.

"[135] O'Brien's press release went out mid-day on January 12, 2010, which he addressed to "People of Earth": For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news.

[156] SNL's Seth Meyers addressed the controversy on the program's Weekend Update segment, joking that the conflict showed that "you don't need Cinemax to see someone get screwed on TV", and then proceeding to defend O'Brien.

Addressing the common point about Conan's weak lead-in hurting his ability to build an audience in a different timeslot, Ebersol dismissed it as a "specious argument.

Talks for much of the rest of the week went nowhere, and a Saturday New York Post story ran claiming that O'Brien's staff felt "betrayed" by his actions, as they did not understand his refusal to accept the 12:05 timeslot in order to keep their jobs and was driven by egocentric concerns.

He was personally appalled that NBC challenged his character, as stressing severance for his employees was enormously important to him (he had paid them out of his own pocket during the writers' strike three years earlier).

[213][214] Following his January 20 episode, O'Brien remained at the studio until the early morning hours, alongside executive producer Jeff Ross and the legal counsel, trying to finalize the settlement.

[222][223] Because the segments aired in days immediately following the 2010 Haiti earthquake while national fundraising efforts (including some spearheaded by NBC) were ongoing, O'Brien received criticism for wasting resources.

[229] 10.3 million people watched the final episode of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, a notably high number for live late-night viewing and on a Friday night.

"[248] O'Brien was sure his agreement prohibited television appearances for several months, but gathered NBC would be only too happy to allow him a one-time reprieve for the ad, as it was to improve Leno's image.

[265] In an effort to bolster ratings, TBS secured the cable syndication rights to The Big Bang Theory at a reported US$2 million per episode to serve as a lead-in to Conan three nights a week.

[275] On October 5, 2011, O'Brien returned to 30 Rockefeller Plaza for a surprise, scripted appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to ceremonially retrieve the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog puppet from the studio after NBC had finally granted him the rights to use the character on TBS's Conan.

"[276] During his 2012 appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, O'Brien made it clear that he held no animosity toward NBC, pointing out that the individual executives he clashed with had departed the network shortly after he did due to a regime change.

During his own speech, President Barack Obama quipped, "I understand that when the Correspondents' Association was considering Conan for this gig, they were faced with that age-old dilemma: Do you offer it to him now, or wait for five years and then give it to Jimmy Fallon?

Leno expressed to Steve Kroft that he had been "blindsided" in 2004 when NBC executives asked him to relinquish The Tonight Show in five years' time, though he admitted that he had accepted the decision with no argument or inquiry.

[290]Leno appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show on February 26, 2014, as a surprise guest to deliver the news that the revived program had been renewed by CBS Television Distribution for a second season.

[292] Comedian Bill Maher paid tribute to Leno when the latter was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed upon the host in 2014 when he stepped down from The Tonight Show a second time.

[293] In a 2015 interview Leno reiterated his stance that O'Brien's own performance led to his ouster from 11:35 and that he remained mystified by the suggestion that he should have refused the time slot when it was offered back to him, saying "Why?