No News on Conan at Fox

Anticipating and addressing the critics' questions at today's TCA Executive Session, Fox's President of Entertainment Kevin Reilly commented on rumors that a dissatisfied Conan O'Brien might prefer to leave NBC, rather than delay his Tonight Show a half hour in deference to the newly moving Jay Leno, and jump ship to Fox. Here's what Reilly had to say:

There's not too much more we can illuminate. We're digesting this the same way you are. We're in "wowee" mode right now. Our position on late night has been consistent all along. At our last session when we announced and talked about Wanda [Sykes], people asked if we wanted to be in the five times a week business. And we said that's a business we've been in and out of, and it's never completely off the agenda. It's something we're always interested in.

I love Conan personally and professionally, but he has to make decision about his futgure. We've talked to his people and had informal conversations, mostly commiserating about the situation. But other than that, we're not free to talk about any other business proposition [with Conan], and we haven't.

Carson Daly squeezed out?

A possible casualty in the late-night wars, NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin has admitted, may be the NBC host airing latest at night, Carson Daly with his show Last Call. With the proposal to move Jimmy Fallon back to 1:05, that would mean Daly's show would have to push to 2:05 AM -- which is time dedicated to local affiliate programming. This would effectively mean that in this game of musical chairs, Daly is left without a seat.

Gaspin affirmed the network's commitment to Daly, whose New Year's Eve show achieved a 3.2 demographic rating, a high for him. He said no decision has been made, but talks are ongoing to keep Daly in the NBC fold, with or without Last Call.

BREAKING NEWS... Leno officially axed from 10 PM Slot

BREAKING NEWS: As anticipated this morning, NBC announced at the TCA convention that Jay Leno's 10 PM show is history.

Starting today's presentation by addressing the elephant in the room, NBC Chairman Jeff Gaspin announced that as of February 12, Jay Leno will no longer be airing at 10 PM. Gaspin still stands by the show's quality, but admits that the dramatic competition on network and cable -- plus now from people using the hour to catch up with viewing from their DVRs -- was just too daunting of competition for Jay and his format. The show has just not performing where it needed to be, Gaspin admitted.

(This despite the network's assurances at the upfront back in May that this was a "52-week strategy," where Leno would prove his worth over time, especially as his show in originals would supposedly beat other networks' repeats. "I think over time it would have started to grow. Over time we would have had a much greater time to see it grow. For the network, it was not a wrong decision," he maintains. But as Gaspin now says, as the NBC affiliates, upset about their declining 11 PM newscast ratings from Jay's lead-in, began to revolt and threaten pre-emption, something had to be done now.)

The plan going forward, he said, is still tentative. "I'd like to say that it was a done deal," he admitted, but so far, this is just a proposal, with the late-night hosts being "incredibly gracious and professional" about NBC and its messy situation, but not yet officially on board with the change. And that change is, for Jay Leno to air in a half-hour show at 11:35, for Conan and his Tonight Show to air at 12:05, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to push back to a 1:05 AM start.

Filling the 10 PM slot? Gaspin admits that he doesn't know, but admits he's been thinking about it for a while -- and expects to wait until the last minute to announce when listings are due. "That's what you do when you put together a schedule," he said. "You wait to see what your competitors are doing." But Gaspin does say that, with those 5 hours of network real estate now freed up, he expects we'll see 2 more hours of scripted dramas on NBC, 1 more hour of reality (ugh!), and an expanded Dateline NBC and/or repeats. Sadly, he did not mention additional room for comedies, which used to be NBC's hallmark back in its heyday.

Another change for NBC: going back to the traditional plan of presenting an "upfront" for advertisers in New York, this year on May 17. It's a departure from the earlier, boastful and somewhat hubris-filled plan of going straight to series with shows like Knight Rider and Bionic Woman, which ultimately fizzled creatively.

More details as the critics undoubtedly continue to grill Gaspin and NBC President Angela Bromstad.

Greetings from NBC in Pasadena

This morning, on the heels of Jay Leno's surprise cancellation of his Thursday and Friday night editions of The Tonight Show this week, NBC presents a short, one-day press tour for TV critics.

Although the network has no presentation scheduled for Leno's new, Monday-Friday 10PM series -- they're concentrating on Southland, some reality crap, and some better cable fare like Law & Order:  Criminal Intent and an intriguing new Sci-Fi (sorry -- SyFy) series called Warehouse 13 -- you can bet that the question will come up, and soon.

Reports are now circulating that Leno's ailment is a simple case of food poisoning, and that he'll be back on Monday.  But the timing of his illness may turn out to be auspicious for network television.  You can bet that there are some execs over at the peacock network this morning second-guessing their plan to destroy the network -- er, subsume the 10 PM hour -- and risk it all on Jay Leno, who turns out to be mortal after all.  Let's hope that this means life for a few more drama pilots at the network -- if only as a plan B!

Speaking of Southland et al, more info coming on these new series...