It’s official, Conan O’Brien is coming back to the late night talk show scene, but at a location no one expected.

It was announced today that Conan O’Brien will launch a new show on cable channel TBS this November. The new show will run Monday thru Thursday at 11 EST/10 CST, and it will push the George Lopez talk show, Lopez Tonight, back by one hour.

Although the majority of the reason Mr. O’Brien left NBC was due to The Tonight Show being moved back an hour, apparently Mr. Lopez is all for it, and even went so far as to call O’Brien last week to ask him to join the basic cable channel.  ”I can’t think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as my lead-in,” Lopez said in a statement. “It’s the beginning of a new era in late-night comedy.”

According to Nikki Finke, although TBS was never mentioned by the press as a possibility, they have been wooing him since the beginning.  It was George Lopez’s personal phone call last week that pushed to him finally sign with the cable channel.  The most surprising twist is that the untitled new show will have the same budget as The Tonight Show did, and will also give Mr. O’Brien a lot more creative freedom now that he is freed of network constraints.

“For decades, late-night TV has been dominated by broadcast television,”  Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks, said. “Now, with a young audience and a growing late-night lineup, TBS is set to be the choice of comedy fans for years to come.”

The rumors had all pointed to Fox being the front runner, but apparently the affiliates weren’t thrilled with the idea of giving up their lucrative syndication shows such as The Office and the pending 30 Rock.  There was also some talks with Microsoft about doing a show on the Xbox Live system, but that never came to fruition.

The timing is of course perfection as Mr. O’Brien’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour” kicks off tonight in Eugene, OR., providing him with the perfect platform to promote his new show without violating his agreement with NBC.