RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Conan

Changes are coming to Jay Leno's revamped "Tonight Show."

Eubanks Leno's longtime bandleader Kevin Eubanks is leaving the program, and announcer John Melendez will no longer provide voiceover for the show.

Eubanks will still appear on the revamped "Tonight Show" when it debuts March 1, but the guitarist is currently negotiating an exit date with NBC. Sources expect Eubanks will depart within months of the show's return.

The oft-amused Eubanks joined "Tonight" in 1992 and took over as band leader in 1995. Eubanks then followed Leno to his short-lived "Jay Leno Show."

As for Melendez, the former Howard Stern sidekick is still expected to continue as a writer on the show.

The network also unveiled a new logo for "Tonight," a more sophisticated-looking and darker image than those used in the past.

With Conan at 11, Lopez should kill at 12. We shall see. Only Lopez could fuck it up.

With Conan at 11, Lopez should kill at 12. We shall see. Only Lopez could fuck it up.

Friends, Seinfeld, The Office and now Conan.

they both start with a T and have 3 letters. Grandpa gets confused sometimes with this newfangled cable. His blog is full of rants about the fad of color television.

Conan O'Brien wouldn't talk to TBS when execs called last week to ask if he'd bring his show to cable.

TBS already had a late-night talk-show host -- comedian George Lopez -- and O'Brien was the last person on earth who would be part of a power play to push him out.

Then Lopez called Conan and told him, not only was he alright with the idea of moving his show to midnight to make room for a new O'Brien show, the whole thing was sort of his idea, Lopez claimed.

"Lopez didn't just call," said Gavin Polone, Conan's longtime manager, "he worked it."

That was last Wednesday. By Sunday, Conan had a deal with the Atlanta-based cable channel -- and a surprise ending to the late-night soap opera that began last January when NBC pushed Conan out of "The Tonight Show" for Jay Leno's return.

"We literally negotiated for about 68 hours, and it's done, " Turner Broadcasting president Steven Koonin said. "And we did it quietly."

Conan tweeted the news yesterday, writing: "The good news: I will be doing a show on TBS starting in November! The bad news: I'll be playing Rudy on the all new Cosby Show."

O'Brien had been talking for months with Fox about hosting a late-night show or, alternatively, an Oprah-style show at 7 p.m.

But Fox could not guarantee Conan the two things he wanted most -- an 11 o'clock start all over the country and ownership of the new show, as David Letterman has with his CBS show.

Insiders say that more than one third of all Fox stations would not agree to clear time on their schedules for Conan at 11.

TBS essentially gave him everything he asked for including his existing staff whose salaries he'd been paying out of his own pocket since they were booted from NBC three months ago.

When TBS called, Conan's advisors had been working on an untested idea -- a talk show at 7 p.m. where games shows like "Wheel of Fortune" and TV magazines like "Entertainment Tonight" traditionally rule the roost.

The biggest stumbling block was convincing Conan to give up his late-night ambitions and try something radically new, the sources said.

"I think we've offered him something that a lot of other places couldn't," Koonin said. "We gave him ownership of the show.

"We gave him a pledge to love him in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. Of course, now he's richer and we're poorer, but it's great!" Koonin said.

The timing of the announcement was no coincidence either.

Conan was set to begin a 30-city live tour last night in Eugene, Ore., essentially to keep his name in lights.

Now the tour will be used to promote the new show.

Damn straight. When I was your age we had three channels and could only get PBS if we moved the antenna (which we never did because that's a liberal commie government run network). And we liked it.

I think TBS gave him this show to see how a late night show would work for them. Lopez will be fired by the end of the year.