For Jay Leno, Parting Is Such Sour Sorrow

Jay Leno, flanked by Ben Silverman (left) and Marc Graboff, goes after the bald truth. (By Paul Drinkwater -- Nbc)

Graboff stepped in to do damage control:

"First of all, we're not agreeing he's going to ABC," he insisted pluckily. "We're still talking to Jay about staying within NBC Universal behind his deal on 'The Tonight Show.' So we're not even going to concede that at this point. But again, we've made our decision and we're happy with it and we're very confident that 'The Tonight Show' will continue to be dominant in its time period."

Conan will step down as host of the post-"Tonight" show, "Late Night," in the first quarter of 2009, the two execs said.

NBC announced in May that former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Jimmy Fallon will take over Conan's "Late Night" gig. That's going to happen a few weeks later, the NBC suits said Monday, though Fallon's going to start testing material online months before his on-air start date.

Now, you're probably wondering what we mean by "cotton-candy patter."

Silverman also was asked about "The Office" spinoff, which is now maybe, or maybe not, an Amy Poehler comedy that was supposed to debut after NBC's broadcast of the next Super Bowl. Here, for your reading pleasure, is Ben Silverman's Answer:

"Well, fortunately for Amy and [her husband], she's pregnant right now. So the target was to have it be ready after the Super Bowl. . . . So the timing will be tough to be able to turn that show around to fit into the post-Super Bowl slot. It's much more likely we're going to have to launch that in March. What happened was ['The Office' show runners Greg Daniels and Mike Schur] came up with two ideas. One of which is totally a spinoff, which they're pursuing and [is] planted inside 'The Office' and maybe would involve characters who are already on 'The Office' who would then migrate to a new show. And then they developed a different parallel, which was kind of set stylistically and formed by 'The Office' but not characters based in 'The Office,' or storylines based in 'The Office.'

"And, as they pursued both, we decided to put all our energy to get Amy locked in, and she agreed, and then we started a negotiation with her and also focused on making sure that Mike and Greg's creative was something that she really was going to respond to. And that kind of took position A in what Greg and Mike were going to focus on right now. So that's kind of where the process went.

"We're still pursuing the spinoff, but when you get a talent like Amy Poehler at the top of her game coming off what easily could have been a decision to become a full-time movie star, this was a great chance for us to land her, and Mike and Greg and everybody at NBC think she's just the ideal talent to fill out what they're working on."