This story went through several incarnations over the past 24 hours – but it now appears more changes are on the way.

The article that got the most attention was EXTRA‘s, which confirmed a report from K-EARTH101.com. But in the 2pmET hour on MSNBC, entertainment reporter Courtney Hazlett shot the story down, saying, “Kevin is happy, Jay is happy. They’ll be working together.”

And since it’s all under the NBCU umbrella, it sounded like the story was over. But later that day the story reemerged in several outlets, including the New York Times:

Mr. Eubanks has told colleagues on the show that he will definitely leave his post as leader of what will be a reconstituted “Tonight Show” band (after its brief run as the “Prime Time Band” on Mr. Leno’s 10 p.m. weeknight show) after an interim transition period starting March 1.

And there was a new NBC statement:

Kevin has expressed interest in pursuing personal touring and recording opportunities; however, he will be with the show when it returns.

While EXTRA floated Darius Rucker as a replacement (“Hootie” of Hootie and the Blowfish), while EW.com’s Ken Tucker is endorsing Randy Newman.

But that’s not all! James Hibberd is reporting John Melendez is ending his run as announcer, although staying on as writer. So pretty soon, there will be two new job openings. The new Tonight Show is shaping up to be more different from the old Tonight Show than The Jay Leno Show was.

And on that note – here’s the new Tonight Show logo circulating around the web today (one size fits all unfortunately so far). It’s dark, like the clouds above the new incarnation:

> Update: Variety’s Michael Schneider has more background on the logo.

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Also, images from the deconstruction of the Tonight Show set sure to depress Team Conan.

Peter Kafka of AllThingsD writes about the online scrubbing:

Perhaps NBC wishes you didn’t. The GE (GE) unit has removed every episode of the show’s seven-month run from its NBC.com site, as well as Hulu, the site NBC owns with News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC.

A little odd, given that a couple of days ago, the network was offering every single “Tonight Show” episode O’Brien had taped on NBC.com. But then again, everything about this story has been odd. NBC declined to comment.

So not only can you find no Tonight Show episodes or clips anywhere, but if you search for “Conan O’Brien” on NBC.com, you’ll laughingly find absolutely ZERO results. Not so at Hulu – although the Tonight Show section is gone, Conan is featured in other, non-NBC shows. One of the first results (video below) is G4′s report from a Conan rally in January, in addition to interviews with Charlie Rose and James Lipton.

While Conan is disappearing from the web, his expensive former studio is physically disappearing. Aaron Bleyaert, a former Conan employee who wrote the NBC.com blog, documented the destruction on his personal Tumblr (via Gawker).

Meanwhile, there are just two more episodes of The Jay Leno Show, which goes off the air Tuesday. Ashton Kutcher apparently is the series finale guest. Tune in, because this is history, people.

Here’s Attack of the Show visiting a Conan rally, via Hulu:

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Last night on The Jay Leno Show, comedian and FOX late night host Wanda Sykes showed she reads the internet (and Jay Leno doesn’t), as she took the time to call out NBC for the fried chicken “Black History Month” menu choice that bubbled up just a few hours before taping.

When Sykes brought it up, and showed the Twitpic, Leno asked, “Is that real?” while Kevin Eubanks laughed hysterically (although it wasn’t clear if he knew about it or was just laughing at her jokes). For what it’s worth, the menu was at NBC’s New York HQ, not LA.

More from Sykes:

That is real, Jay. Did you get any of that? Black History Month. NBC, that’s how they celebrate. Oh no, ya’ll don’t need to know about Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, here’s some fried chicken. Here ya go. All I’m saying, I’m scared to know what they’re having for dessert. I hope they at least took it off the rind. Watermelon, who knows.

And in a general comment that made it feel like about three weeks ago, Sykes summed it up: “Is the whole damn network on medical marijuana, what the hell is going on over here?”

Since we broke the story yesterday, some have argued that, despite NBC’s response, we (and others) were making far too much of it. But as Sykes showed – it’s definitely not ignorable.

Check it out:

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Letterman previewed a promo of the “new” old Tonight Show, and knocked Jay Leno‘s “State of the Network” speech from Monday.

“They’re already promoting the new Tonight Show with Jay Leno again,” said Letterman during his monologue. As you can imagine, the fake promo took some direct shots at Leno, echoing what other comedians have come out and said publicly during the past couple weeks.

“All your favorite elements of Jay’s Tonight Show will be back,” said an announcer. “The phony handshakes, the guy with the guitar who laughs at everything, the bit he stole from Letterman’s late night show, the bit he stole from Howard Stern, the announcer he stole from Howard Stern.”

“Phony” and “stole” are two words that are some of the worst to be associated with a comedian, but it’s a storyline we’ve seen. Rosie O’Donnell made many of these points, and Howard Stern replayed them, on her satellite radio show. It is a devastating takedown. And even if, after this week, the story dies down until after the Olympics when Leno slides back to 11:30, don’t think Letterman will let this go very easily.

The Late Show host continued his NBC focus the next segment, and described why Leno’s Tuesday night explanation was “Vintage Jay.”

“He said we should not blame Conan for what’s going on,” said Letterman. “And I said to myself, ‘No one is blaming Conan.’”

Later: “You get fired, get another gig! Don’t hang around waiting for somebody to drop dead.”

Ouch.

Here’s the fake promo, and below, the explanation of “Vintage Jay”:

Here’s Letterman’s “Vintage Jay” explanation:

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Here’s what Leno would like you to know: He doesn’t have an agent or a manager — a handshake is all right by him. His version of the Tonight Show was #1 when NBC asked him to step down, and when he left. Every time NBC asks him to do something, he says sure. Also, everything that has happened over the past five years has been NBC’s idea. As for Conan O’Brien, he’s a good guy, a decent guy, they always go along great. However, Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show was not #1.

That’s the short version of Leno’s speech. The long version is below – the video first, then the transcript to follow:

I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘We know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘Okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘That’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay.

So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand – (applause)-No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘Would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘We want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘How about primetime?’ I said, ‘That will never work.’ No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy. Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘Alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘Can I keep my staff?’ Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed. Now for the first four or five months against original shows like “CSI” you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up. Okay, great. I agree to that.

Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘This show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ Can you let me out of my contract? No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company. How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of makes the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘What’s your idea?’ They said, ‘Well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘Okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (Laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal.

Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘Yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this – through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I don’t get ratings, he wants. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work so we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is.

Transcript via GossipCop

And he roasted Leno mercilessly. It’s unbelievably uncomfortable. Seriously embarrassing. Why did this happen? No idea – but I’m glad it did.

So for those who aren’t familiar with Jay Leno’s “10 At 10″ – most of you, probably – here’s how it works. Leno asks 10 questions that are fairly benign, the celebrity who is appearing via satellite (oh, technology) answers them and then they move on to Jaywalking or Headlines or something. I think. I only really started watching the show this week. But tonight it was Kimmel, and he was a hilarious pain the ass.

Let’s fast forward to question 4: “If you got to interview anyone in the world, who would it be?” Kimmel: “You and Conan together.” And then it begins.

What’s the best prank Kimmel ever pulled? “I told a guy that five years from now, I’m gonna give you my show. And then when the five years came, I gave it to him, and then I took it back almost instantly,” said Kimmel

There was a lap dance question. “Strippers, I don’t like in general,” said Kimmel. “Because you have this phony relationship with them for money, similar to when you and Conan were on the Tonight Show together, passing the torch.”

Leno asked “What would you like to host that you haven’t yet?” Said Kimmel: “Oh this is a trick, right? Where you get me to host the Tonight Show and then take it back from me? Listen Lucy I’m not Charlie Brown I don’t fall for that trick.”

And more. I’ll hand it to Leno – this doesn’t really happen very often, especially in prime time, on network TV. You see, Leno’s still in prime time. Until March. When he goes back at 11:30pm. And Kimmel’s jokes are actually just a sad reality.

Here’s the, um, awkward “10 At 10″:

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People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

(Via Media Decoder at the NYT and HuffPo)

Conan O’Brien’s kiss-off letter to NBC is going to make him a hero, not only to people who started off loving him (and watching him!) and not only to creative types sick of being pushed around by The Man. It’s because he’s been cast as the underdog here, unfairly subject to the failings of Jay Leno both as a stand-alone 10 p.m. show and as a crappy lead-in for the Tonight Show.

Conan’s statement is funny, but principled and resolute, and this will only add to the popular support he’s received as this story has unfolded. It will also add to the Leno backlash.

The Leno backlash has been furious. Despite the fact that he was number one for years in that spot, he seems to have virtually no one on his side. “Team Conan” is now to be everywhere (40,500 results in Google to a whopping 36 for “Team Jay“). There is already an TeamConan on Twitter, and both “Team Conan” and “#TeamConan” are now trending huge on Twitter. Conan won TMZ’s “Team Jay or Team Conan?” poll 60-40%;   our poll, which asked readers to focus on business, not loyalty, went to Conan by an even wider margin at 69% – 31%. Comedian Patton Oswalt thinks Leno is uncreative and doesn’t deserve the spot; even the most cursory of Twitter scans will turn up plentiful, scornful calls for Leno to go away. Even Jerry Seinfeld, who came out in favor NBC, came out in favor of NBC. not Leno. And notably, O’Brien’s letter mentions fairness to Jimmy Fallon and a shared history with David Letterman, but has no kind word for his predecessor.

Leno has GOT to know this. And he’s got to be very, very unhappy about it.  He certainly seems unhappy with it, based on the three shows he’s done since the news broke. Right at the top, in his show on Jan. 7th,  he made it clear that this was not his choice and he was not happy (and he was the first one to invoke Fox with “I hear Fox is beautiful this time of year”).  As the story unfolded, Leno refused to accept the spin that it was a “move” rather than a cancellation — and refused to accept the role of the person benefiting from it all (“To be fair, NBC is working on a solution they say in which all parties would be screwed equally”). Last night, he made his contempt for NBC even more clear, and again cast his lot in with the underdogs (“Supposedly we’re moving to 11:30, but even this is not sure. See, my people are upset, Conan’s people are upset. Hey, NBC said they wanted drama at 10—now they got it!”).

Everyone has spent the past few days wondering, what does Conan want? But the other question that no one has asked is, what does Leno want? He has made the point repeatedly that he left late night at number one — does he really want to come back like this? Does he want to have to fight back against Letterman, fight against Conan at another network, be cast as the bad guy in this drama in which by all accounts, the nervous, trigger-happy suits at NBC are the ones to blame? He’s got money, he’s got fame, he’s got a legacy and he went out at the top. Why on earth would he want to go backwards, with an added plus of being hated for it?

He doesn’t. That’s why he has made it so very clear that this was not his move, this is not what he wants, and it’s definitely not his fault. But that doesn’t matter, because there can only be one hero here, and that’s Conan. Ironically, in dismantling and destroying their late-night franchise, NBC has undermined their star, their hero who was supposed to save the day, who has now been cast as the washed-up has been for whom it wasn’t enough to just fail once.

And that’s what NBC is left with: Thanks to their terrible judgment and collosal lack of vision, they’ve built up the guy they’re kicking out the door and torn down the guy coming in. Way to save late night, you idiots.

Related:
Conan Wins the Hearts and Minds of the Internet [Mashable]

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Here’s Leno’s monologue from last night. Seem like a fan of NBC to you?

It’s probably not intentional, but it is kinda ironic. Observe as not one, but two Leno show ads pop up on Letterman’s main news page:

And again:

(h/t Adland for pointing this out; they have another as well.)

Related: David Letterman Blackmail Shocker: Host Confesses To Affairs After Extortion Attempt

What Do We Know About Robert “Joe” Halderman?

“We also have an interview with President Barack Obama, we’re working on that, you might see that tomorrow night,” said Leno. The premiere tonight at 10pm will be huge – but it sounds like Leno was jumping the gun.

An NBC spokesperson tells Mediaite, “[Leno] was teasing a comedy bit.”

At the time, the Twitterverse started propagating the quote, including well-respected sources like NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd. That led other outlets, like The Washington Post to run with the story, assuming if Leno dropped the info last night it had to be true – which it’s not.

One person who will be appearing on the program – Kanye West. GossipCop confirms West will appear as scheduled tonight with Jay-Z and Rihanna to perform “Run This Town.” Will West address last night’s controversial asshole-ing? Probably not, unless he plans to grab the mic from Jerry Seinfeld during his stand-up act (on second thought, probably).

We assume the interview will look a lot like this (props to Leno on the push for some last minute premiere viewership):

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