Depending on the terms of the contract and the nature of the talks inside NBC, Conan O'Brien could be faced with a tough choice: He could keep The Tonight Show but settle into the later time slot or he could bail. If he stays, the rumor goes, Leno's show will be reduced in length to just 30 minutes. Jimmy Fallon would literally be left in a difficult spot. A 30-minute bump would put him at 1:00 a.m. That's Carson Daly territory, and viewership is comparatively very low at that hour.
And speaking of Carson Daly, what would become of him? He's been offered a morning radio talk show in Los Angeles, so it wouldn't be surprising if Last Call gets canceled entirely.
We also don't know exactly how NBC would fill the primetime slots opened up by the move. NBC has said that it's sitting on 18 pilots that it could turn into new series. That's obviously more than enough to fill in the gaps that would be left in the schedule by Leno's move. The pilots had better be good, though, because that's a lot of totally new programming to debut in February.
Late-Night Shows Are Already Joking About This, Including Leno
Late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson totally went there. He dedicated more than two minutes of his show to mocking NBC for considering the move. "I'm sorry, I can't be here tonight," he said. "I've been moved. I'm appearing at 11:30 on NBC."