After Conan v. Leno cooled down and NBC could no longer keep our favorite Ginger off the airwaves, late night fans predicated that our favorite Ginger would get a new show on Fox. Wrong! In a surprise move, cable network TBS announced today that Conan will host an 11 p.m. late-night show for the cable network in November.
Entertainment Weekly reports that the new program will serve as a lead-in to George Lopez’s show Lopez Tonight, which will shift to a midnight time slot. The network said O’Brien only began talking to execs there last week, and Lopez even called O’Brien himself. “I can’t think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as a lead-in,” Lopez said in a statement. (No word on whether fans will brand themselves Team Lopo and start protesting the fact that Conan kicked George out of his old timeslot.)
Conan joked about the move, “In three months I’ve gone from network TV to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.”
Although Conan’s decision to go to TBS was a surprise, it’s practical. Right now, Fox airs reruns of sitcoms at 11, enabling its affiliate stations to sell up to 11 minutes of ad time during the hour. If the timeslot reverted back to the network, the stations would lose millions in ad revenue. Insiders doubt that Conan will truly compete with his network counterparts, but he will certainly have one 11 pm rival: Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart.
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