- Reuters, Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:20 PM
Does Conan O'Brien's contract give NBC the right to bump him to 12:05 to make room for Jay Leno at 11:35? That's the $40 million legal question. If O'Brien's contract has a time-slot language, like
David Letterman's, he's in the right. If there isn't, presumably NBC could void his deal without paying him off. That's the position NBC executives are taking.
However, if the
breach-of-contract claim ever got to court, perhaps O'Brien could argue that specifying a time slot was not necessary because "The Tonight Show" has aired in essentially the same time period for
decades. Late-night is a different TV animal; the "Tonight Show" has always aired after the local news, which is why "tonight" is in the title.
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