Multiple sources are reporting that Jay Leno is returning as host of The Tonight Show, and Conan O’Brien is exiting with a lot of money.

As I was writing this, the only source on this news was TMZ, which I always take a grain of salt, but now Nikki Finke, who is almost untouchable on this type of news, is reporting that the final details are being worked out now that will restore Jay Leno to the hosting duties on The Tonight Show, and Conan O’Brien is completely out of a job.  Ms. Finke’s sources say that Mr. O’Brien will exit with a tremendous amount of money, exactly how much is not known, but it sounds like it will be a considerable amount.

Jeff Zucker is reportedly taking no blame in this whole debacle, even though everything traces back to all of it being him: guaranteeing Conan The Tonight Show prematurely, not seeing if Jay was ready to retire and then coming up with this disaster of  a primetime vehicle for Leno.

I can not believe what a debacle this has turned in to.  With each step NBC looks worse and worse, raising Conan O’Brien to almost folkhero status as people rally around the man who is getting shafted by corporate America.  Everyone involved in this situation should be ashamed of themselves, the biggest one being Jeff Zucker, but closely followed by Jay Leno.  The gracious thing to do would be to step aside, he had his shot in primetime, it failed, move on.  Instead you are forcing a man and his staff — yes, lets not forget he brought his staff with him from New York City — out of jobs.  They uprooted their lives and moved up to “the show” to use baseball vernacular, but because Jay Leno’s ego won’t let him fade away, he is ousting them so he can keep his chin on TV.

If this proves to be true, I am done with NBC.  So long as Jeff Zucker is in power, I will not watch another show on this network, which right now just means giving up 30 Rock.  And you know what?  I’ll live.

Show your support, display I’m With Coco!