Rachel Sklar Talks Conan/Leno on CNN’s “Reliable Sources”

Mediaite’s Rachel Sklar was a guest on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” with Howard Kurtz to discuss NBC’s late night imbroglio, Conan O’Brien‘s last Tonight Show and whether Jay Leno is really the bad guy in all this. With The Wrap’s Ray Richmond and the Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik.

From the transcript:

SKLAR: I would hardly call Jay Leno naive. He certainly knew — he had the biggest range of options of anyone here. He had five years to figure out what he wanted to do. What he decided to do was stay at NBC while Conan took over and have a sort of shadow government set up and wait in the wings until who knows what happened. And in the meantime, he also negotiated a bigger poison pill penalty for his own cancellation. So, I wouldn’t call…

KURTZ: And by the way, Conan O’Brien had a poison pill penalty. If he was taken off “The Tonight Show,” he had to be paid $45 million.

SKLAR: The reason he had the poison pill penalty — the reason he had that penalty was to ensure that NBC would not do this. The whole reason he had that was to give Conan comfort that NBC would actually go through with their promise because NBC wanted to keep Conan from exploring his own range of options.

KURTZ: Right.

SKLAR: So that’s the reason for Conan’s poison pill.

Video below:

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