| Conan | |
|---|---|
| Format |
Talk show Variety show |
| Created by | Conan O'Brien |
| Presented by | Conan O'Brien |
| Narrated by | Andy Richter |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Jeff Ross |
| Producer(s) | Frank Smiley |
| Location(s) | Stage 15, Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, California |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Conaco |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | TBS |
| Picture format |
480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Original airing | November 8, 2010[1] |
| Status | Upcoming show |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows |
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (NBC; 1993–2009) The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien (NBC; 2009–2010) |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
Conan is an upcoming American late-night talk show featuring Conan O'Brien as host, scheduled to premiere November 8, 2010[2] on TBS. The program's host, Conan O'Brien, previously hosted NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien for 16 years, followed by a brief tenure with The Tonight Show.
In January 2010, after The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien had been on the air for seven months, it was announced that NBC intended to move Jay Leno from primetime back to his original timeslot, with O'Brien's show starting shortly after midnight. Following a brief conflict, NBC announced that they had paid $45 million to buy out O'Brien's contract, ending his relationship with the network. Months after his official leave, O'Brien went on a comedy tour, entitled The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, which was largely inspired by the outpouring of support for O'Brien on the internet during the 2010 Tonight Show conflict.
Conan will air Mondays through Thursdays beginning at 11:00 p.m. Andy Richter will continue his role as sidekick to O'Brien. The Legally Prohibited Band, formerly known as The Max Weinberg 7 and later as The Tonight Show Band, will serve as the show's house band.[3] Drummer Max Weinberg will be replaced by regular substitute James Wormworth, and the group will continue to be led by guitarist Jimmy Vivino.[3]
Contents |
| Wikinews has related news: US TV host Conan O'Brien rejects NBC's offer to switch his show's time slot |
In a high profile announcement by television network NBC on September 27, 2004, it was officially declared that Conan O'Brien, then host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien would take over as host of The Tonight Show in 2009, replacing Jay Leno, after a seventeen year run. This was accompanied by reports that Jay Leno had told Jeff Zucker, the President of NBC Entertainment, of his plans to retire that same year.[4] Leno immediately explained on his show the following night that he wanted to avoid the hardship that he had experienced in the dispute over retiring Johnny Carson's hosting duties between him and David Letterman in 1992 and that O'Brien was "certainly the most deserving person for the job." In 2008 however several reports were made that Leno, still the ratings champion in the timeslot, was rethinking his leaving the show. Speculation was put to an end when it was announced he would instead host a new prime-time variety show on NBC entitled The Jay Leno Show, which aired weeknights at 10:00 p.m. from September 14, 2009, until the show's cancellation on February 9, 2010, due to low ratings and public outcries from NBC affiliates.
On January 7, 2010, multiple media outlets reported that beginning March 1, 2010, Jay Leno would move from his 10 p.m. weeknight time slot to 11:35 p.m., due to pressure from affiliates as a result of both Leno's poor ratings. NBC also cited Conan's poor ratings as being responsible for his timeslot change, though it was widely speculated that Conan's numbers were down as a result of Jay's poor lead-in creating a domino effect on the local news and Conan's Tonight Show. It was suggested that the move was in favor of Leno because it would have been more expensive for NBC to dump Leno than O'Brien due to Jay's 150 million dollar penalty cause.[5] The plan would have Leno's show shortened from an hour to 30 minutes. All NBC late night programming would be preempted by the 2010 Winter Olympics between February 15 and February 26, 2010, but a final decision about the programming changes was made by NBC on January 10, 2010.[6][7] O'Brien's contract stipulated that NBC could move the show back to 12:05 a.m. without penalty, a clause put in primarily to accommodate sports preemptions, leaving him with no apparent recourse other than resignation.[8] O'Brien released a statement on January 12, 2010, stating, "I sincerely believe that delaying The Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t The Tonight Show."[9]
After two weeks of negotiations, on January 21, 2010, it was officially announced that Conan O'Brien had signed a $45 million deal to leave the network altogether.[10][11] As part of the agreement with NBC, O'Brien was prohibited from performing on the internet, television or radio until September 1, 2010. O'Brien was also prohibited to speak negative comments about the situation, NBC or Leno during this period. It was also expected that certain intellectual property including characters, comedy pieces or bits that O'Brien created during his time at NBC would become the property of NBC, therefore prohibiting his use of them in the future at TBS. However, it is now reported that NBC has rethought that stance, stating that they "wish Conan the best" and he will be able to take his characters and sketches to the new TBS show.[12]
During the time off Conan found a way to perform without going against his contract by doing The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour which began on April 12, 2010 and ended on June 14, 2010 [13] which incorporated many elements from his Late Night show and including video bits, musical and comic performers, and cameo appearances by celebrities. The show heavily joked about the legal constraints O'Brien found himself (for example renaming the Masturbating Bear, the "Self-Pleasuring Panda").[14]
Shortly before the tour began, O'Brien announced that he had signed a deal with cable network TBS to host a talk show on their late-night lineup, beginning in November 2010. Before the deal was announced, O'Brien initially had reservations about the move, as it would place comedian George Lopez's show, Lopez Tonight, one hour later to midnight. George Lopez soon called O'Brien, and expressed his excitement about the move.[15] Lopez went on to state, "I can't think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as my lead-in [...] It's the beginning of a new era in late-night comedy."[10]
In his own statement about the deal, O'Brien stated, "In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly."[10][16] O'Brien's production company—Conaco—will reportedly own all rights to the show.[17]
It is confirmed most of the writers (Brian Kiley, Brian Stack, Dan Cronin, Todd Levin, Andres DuBouchet, Michael Gordon, Matt O'Brien, Jose Arroyo, Brian McCann, and Head Writer Mike Sweeney[18]) and crew from the NBC programs will make the transition to TBS though other long-time writing staff members have not been confirmed. Mike Sweeney will resume his role as Head Writer. It was also confirmed that O'Brien's sidekick, Andy Richter, will continue his role.[19][20]
On May 16, 2010, it was announced that O'Brien will launch his new show at Stage 15 on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, where Lopez Tonight also tapes, and not far from where his Tonight Show predecessor and successor Jay Leno tapes.[21]
Recent[when?] interviews with O'Brien and Richter indicate that the show will more closely represent Late Night than Tonight in regards to content and material, meaning that edgier or questionable content excised as a result of the move to the earlier timeslot will no longer be an issue at TBS. On the July 12th, 2010 episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast, Andy Richter said that they no longer have to "worry about living up to a respected franchise", and that on The Tonight Show certain sketches "that just felt too 12:30" would be cut and how "it'll be nice to not have to worry about that anymore". During an appearance at the 2010 San Francisco Sketch Comedy Festival, O'Brien told the audience he was "no longer interested in 'broadening' the audience or trying to reach everybody of all ages," further implying the content will not be toned-down. As the show is on cable, fewer restrictions will apply to the show in regards to explicit content, such as swearing and racier material.
On September 1, 2010, O'Brien officially announced via a YouTube video that the new show's title was simply Conan. O'Brien did this by writing it on a piece of paper, afterward O'Brien remarked that the second "N" in his name looked more like a "W" and it looked like he had written "Conaw" instead, then "panicked" when he was notified the premiere would take place in two months instead of three. The choice of Conan as the title required the consent of Conan Properties International, the owners of the Conan the Barbarian franchise, including a "Conan" trademark covering certain types of TV series.[22][23] A disclaimer to this effect is used on some advertising materials for the show.[24]
It has been stated that the set for the show, designed by the same designer of Conan's previous sets, will be inspired by The Legally Prohibited Tour, adopting more of a "theatre" appearance than the previous shows.[25]
O'Brien's longtime band (known first as The Max Weinberg 7 and later as the Legally Prohibited Band) will serve as the Conan house band, and will be fronted by longtime guitarist Jimmy Vivino.[3][26] Max Weinberg, who had served as O'Brien's bandleader and drummer since 1993, will not appear on the new program.[3][26] Weinberg's decision was influenced by a combination of a major heart surgery he had in February 2010, and that the fact that his family never left their native New Jersey (even during the Tonight Show period), both issues that he kept private until an October 2010 interview.[27] James Wormworth, who often acted as Weinberg's on-air substitute, will serve as the band's new permanent drummer.[3][26] Weinberg was not a part of the Legally Prohibited Tour, and remained vague throughout most of 2010 about the possibility of his participation in the new TBS show.[28]
In Canada, the program will air on CTV Monday to Thursday night (Tuesday to Friday morning) at 1:05 a.m. local time. The unusually late time slot – two hours after its airing in the United States for viewers in the Eastern Time Zone (CTV Atlantic viewers will see the program at 1:05 a.m. AT / 12:05 a.m. ET) – is due to Canadian content requirements for national and local newscasts in the 11:00 p.m. hour and CTV's existing commitments to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at 12:05 a.m. and The Colbert Report at 12:35 a.m.
However, CTV executives also indicated that the program was likely to air earlier on their specialty channel The Comedy Network.[29] That channel previously aired both Daily and Colbert during the 11:00 p.m. ET hour, simulcasting the Comedy Central feed, which also appeared initially to be a conflict with Conan. However, on September 7, 2010, the channel moved both shows to the 10:00 p.m. hour, presumably freeing up the 11:00 timeslot for a simulcast of the TBS feed of Conan.
Selling rights to a Canadian channel was necessary since TBS is no longer available in Canada – in October 2007, the local Atlanta station through which Canadian cable subscribers had previously received TBS programming adopted a distinct schedule as WPCH-TV (Peachtree TV). The revamped station continues to air some of the same syndicated series as TBS, but WPCH later indicated explicitly that it had no plans to broadcast the new O'Brien program.[30]
Broadcasters for other international markets have not been confirmed yet.
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Conan is a late-night talk show on TBS. It is hosted by Conan O'Brien, who used to host The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. His sidekick and announcer is Andy Ritcher, and his band is Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band. The show started in November of 2010. A show has two celebrity guests and a monologue. In addition, there is either a musical guest or a stand-up comedian. Rounding out the show are comedy bits, which include spoofs of local newscasts, recurring characters, and ridiculous things happening to trombone player LaBamba Rosenberg.
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