Conan snags nearly $40M in exit agreement with NBC

**petruccio** · 19th January 2010 01:28 PM

Conan snags nearly $40M in exit agreement with NBC
NEWSCORE/NYPOST
Last Updated: 8:09 AM, January 19, 2010
Posted: 8:06 AM, January 19, 2010

Conan O'Brien is close to signing a nearly $40 million deal to walk away from his job hosting NBC's "The Tonight Show," in a new move that will also award severance pay to his employees, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The deal, which has been fiercely negotiated for the last week, will give O'Brien $32.5 million to go on garden leave until September. This would prevent him from hosting any other TV shows if he pockets the cash, but gives him an option to sign other deals.

The remaining $7.5 million will go in severance pay to about 200 of Conan's "Tonight Show" employees after they expressed outrage about the prospect of going penniless, reports said.

O'Brien decided to leave NBC after executives said they would push his show to a slot after midnight (EST) in favor of the Jay Leno Show.

The exit agreement, which could be completed as early as Tuesday, bars O'Brien from bad-mouthing his former NBC bosses.

News of the deal comes hours after Leno tried to explain his side of the dispute with NBC during the monologue of his soon-to-be cancelled 10 p.m. show.

He said his expected return to 11:35 p.m. could become official today -- and called frenemy Conan O'Brien a "great guy."

His remarks (text below) came on the heels of reports O'Brien was close to signing a $40 million exit deal with NBC after refusing to move his "Tonight Show" to 12:05 a.m.

Jay's remarks

' 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, “OK. 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.” OK.

So time goes by, and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand — [applause] — no, no. OK, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, it 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.” OK.

“What are your ideas?” They said, “How about prime time?” I said, “That will never work.” “No, no, we want to put you on at 10. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10.” . . . 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. OK.

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? OK.

So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of make 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, “OK, I’m not crazy about doing a half-hour, but OK. 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, “OK. You think Conan will go for that?” “Yes, yes. [Laughter.] Almost guarantee you.” I said OK. 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 . . . 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 . . . 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.'

The Post's Michael Starr contributed to this report.

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