No More Viral: NBC and Conan Agree on Departure

Dan Koelsch, January 21, 2010January 21, 2010

News outlets are reporting that NBC and Conan O’Brien have finally struck a deal for Conan’s departure. Conan would not agree to move to 12:00am after NBC decided to cancel Jay Leno’s 10pm show and move Jay up to 11:30pm. While most of the details of the deal are not yet known, we do know Conan walks away with a good bit of money, though he will have to stay off the air for awhile and can’t say anything bad about the network for a certain amount of time too. While it’s always nice to have arguments settled, the end is bitter sweet. Find out why after the jump.

As we reported, the whole late night fiasco has been viral gold. Between the upswell of support for Conan and the talk show host himself creating viral as he rips into NBC, no one has been talking this much about late night TV in years. Unfortunately, now that will all end. Not only is the situation resolved, but Conan’s no-trash-talk clause means by the time he can really do anything, this will be old news. Sure, we may see a few viral crumbs here and there (mostly from other talk show hosts unless Conan gets clever), but it’s basically over. Where will Conan go now? The biggest rumor is FOX, since they have a nice cozy space at 11pm for him, but no offer has been made yet.

To cheer you up, check out this hilarious video analysis of the situation from NMA News in Tawain: