After 22 years, Leno leaves while his "Tonight Show" still tops late-night ratings.
"Jay Leno is an entertainment icon, making millions of people laugh every weeknight for more than 20 years," said Steve Burke, chief executive officer of NBCUniversal. "We are purposefully making this change when Jay is No. 1, just as Jay replaced Johnny Carson when he was No. 1."
While Leno is still king of late night, NBC hopes the younger Fallon can attract more viewers in the key, advertiser-friendly 18-49 demo.
In the release, Leno struck a friendly tone, in keeping with the vibe the two hosts gave off in their recent "Tonight" song duet.
"Congratulations, Jimmy. I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy," Leno said. "If you need me, I'll be at the garage."
Still, it remains to be seen if this transition will be a smooth one or if will blow up like Leno's hand-off to Conan O'Brien in 2009. In that tumultuous chapter of the long "Tonight Show" saga, "Late Night" host O'Brien took over from Leno after five years of waiting. Leno wasn't happy to be giving up his seat, and NBC scrambled to give him a primetime show to prevent him from jumping to another network. But when O'Brien's "Tonight Show" ratings sagged and Leno's primetime show went down in flames, NBC ended up returning Leno to his gig. A furious O'Brien left to create a new late-night show on TBS.
This time, it seems like the hosting change will stick. Not only is NBC handing over producing duties to Lorne Michaels, the man in charge of "Late Night" and "Saturday Night Live," it's moving the show back to its original city of New York for Fallon.
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After a few weeks of late night disses and rumors, the official announcement
came Wednesday afternoon that Jay Leno would be retiring from his seat
as the host of the "Tonight Show" in February 2014, and Jimmy Fallon
would be graduating from "Late Night" to fill his shoes.
In other words, cue the monologues.
Not surprisingly, Leno and Fallon had plenty to say on the matter, as did their counterparts and competition, from Conan O'Brien to Jimmy Kimmel. And, needless to say, David Letterman brought his sharp tongue to the table, even making the Top Ten list "Things We'll Miss About Jay Leno."
"I got a call from my mom today, she said, 'Well, David, I see you didn't get the Tonight Show again.' Didn't we just go through this. Jay Leno is now being replaced, and this is the second time this has happened," the "Late Show" host said. "I mean, it's crazy. He's being replaced by a younger late-night talk show host – what could possibly go wrong?"
"I’ve known Jay Leno for 38 years, thank you. I don’t know what aspect of that you’re applauding, but thank you," he continued. "As with everything in life, all I really care about is how will this affect me? That’s all I really care about. … But good luck to Jay. I know he’ll be out on the road, getting it done and taking care of business and congratulations on a nice long run there at the 'Tonight Show,' if in fact you're not coming back.”
But he couldn't just leave it at that. Wednesday night's Top Ten list? "Things We'll Miss About Jay Leno." The list includes such gems as "He's Mom's favorite talk show host," "If you broke down on the freeway, Jay was always there to help with a camera crew," and "Now I'm the only guy in late-night television who's not a Jimmy." Watch the full list below:
But that wasn't the end of that fight. Leno managed to get in a solid dig of his own.
"I got to be honest with you, I had a really awkward day today," Leno began. "I had to call David Letterman and tell him he didn't get the 'Tonight Show' again."
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