Where Will Conan Go Post-Tonight Show? Bet on it!

Where Will Conan O’Brien Land? BetUS Has the Odds!

Those of you that attached to yourself to Team Coco in the war against Team Leno and The NBC Empire are now without a home. In what has become an unmitigated disaster for NBC, they have decided to give Jay Leno the 11:35pm time slot back…for a full hour. Just seven months since leaving The Tonight Show, Jay Leno is back.

That means that Conan is out.

You have to hand it to Conan for handling this right. Instead of walking out on his show, or crushing the fledgling career of Jimmy Fallon, Conan has taken as high a road as a comedian who got screwed out of his dream job could take. The options are bountiful for a guy like Conan, and with NBC being forced to pay the remainder of his $80 million dollar contract, money won’t be an issue.

If anything, Conan is free to go where he feels his comedic merits and his iconic legend will be respected. What could be better for an artist like Conan who is still struggling to find his place between the next generation and the last?

The question is where Conan O’Brien heads now. If you want a safe bet, the obvious favorite is FOX, at -185, because they’ve lacked a serious presence in the Late Night wars since Arsenio Hall and his demented index finger left the network. FOX has never been abashed at throwing money around, and Conan actually fits in to the crass, youthful and edgy dynamic that FOX is pointed at.

Their two best shows right now are the trashy America’s Most Wanted and So You Think You Can Dance, but other than that they don’t have a topical pop-culture talk show that they can troll out at late night. While it seems like an easy decision, FOX has to decide whether or not it wants to disrupt its stream of late night alternatives that includes Most Wanted and Cheaters. Conan also has to decide if the network is for him.

ABC still lingers as a potential landing spot for Conan, but that network does so well with its sitcom and drama programs at night. Plus they already have Jimmy Kimmel anchoring down their late night programming. Conan and Kimmel are actually geared towards the same age demographic and having two comics with similar material and an almost identical list of guests doesn’t exactly bode well for Conan’s 2:1 chances of landing with the American Broadcasting Company.

The likelihood of Conan matriculating to CBS are even smaller, though the oddsmakers have given it a 3:1 chance of happening. The fact is that the network is committed to David Letterman, and they already have a huge chunk of audience captured with the inexplicable hits Survivor and NCIS. When it comes to late night personalities, CBS prefers goofs cut in the Craig Ferguson mold.

That leaves HBO and the Internet as the underdogs in this battle. There’s also a tiny hole for Conan to crawl through if Comedy Central feels there’s room for Coco next to The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and the wildly popular Colbert Report.

If you’re adamant that you know where Conan is going to end up, then put your money where your mouth is. Leverage enough in our entertainment props section and you may be joining Conan on the “unemployed but filthy rich” line.

Check out the props on the Leno/Conan affair here.

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