And that’s that. Conan O’Brien will leave NBC after a 17-year career and a scant seven-month gig in his dream job, hosting The Tonight Show. Networks are already courting the popular host, even before Leno regains the desk in March.
Under terms of a settlement reached in the early morning on Thursday, NBC will pay Conan $33 million, which is the balance of his three-year contract with an additional $12 million that is going to laid-off producers and staff.
Compensation for O’Brien’s staff and crew was the final hurdle in negotiations between NBC and O’Brien. O’Brien was said to have been “dug in” on the issue out of concern for the workers, while NBC said this week that it had already agreed to pay “millions of dollars to compensate every one of them” and deemed it a public relations ploy.
Earlier this week O’Brien joked, “At first they thought I was gullible. They said the staff would be taken to a big farm, where they’d be allowed to run free forever.”
Topics: General |
