Leno confirms he's leaving Tonight

Jimmy and Jay sing their version of the classic duet Tonight from the Broadway musical West Side Story

US network NBC has announced its long-rumoured switch in late night, replacing host Jay Leno at The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and moving the iconic franchise back to New York.

Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels will take over as producer of the new Tonight Show.

Fallon's replacement at the 12:35am show Late Night was not named, although Seth Meyers of SNL is considered a strong candidate.

The move had been widely reported but not confirmed by the network until now. NBC reportedly just wrapped up negotiations with Fallon on a contract extension.

Steve Burke, chief executive officer of NBC Universal, said the network is purposefully making the move when Leno is still at the top of the ratings, just as when Leno replaced legendary host Johnny Carson at The Tonight Show.

"Jimmy Fallon is a unique talent and this is his time," Mr Burke said.

Fallon will take over in conjunction with NBC's coverage of next year's Winter Olympic games. NBC hopes for a big audience - much larger than what it gets in prime time now - to promote the handover.

Jay Leno, left, has confirmed that he will step down as host of the Tonight Show next year, making way for Jimmy Fallon to take over behind the desk. Picture: Getty

NBC is worried that rival network ABC's Jimmy Kimmel will establish himself as a go-to late night performer for a younger generation if the network didn't move swiftly to install Fallon. But the move also has the potential to backfire with Leno's fans, who did not embrace new Tonight host Conan O'Brien when Leno was temporarily moved to prime time in 2009.

The first effort toward making a smooth transition came on Monday night, when Leno and Fallon appeared in a comic video making fun of all the late-night rumours with a spoof of West Side Story's Tonight. It aired in between each man's show.

Leno, in a statement, offered his congratulations to Fallon.

"I hope you're as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you're the old guy," he said. "If you need me, I'll be at the garage."

Fallon said, "I'm really excited to host a show that starts today instead of tomorrow."
 

US President Barack Obama, left, talks with Jay Leno during an ad break during a Tonight Show appearance in October. Picture: AP

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Fallon 'replacing Leno on Tonight'

Jimmy Fallon will be replacing Jay Leno as the host of The Tonight Show. Fallon reportedly called Leno to smooth over the move and avoid a repeat of the Conan O'Brien debacle. Picture: Getty Source: Getty Images

AS Jay Leno lobs potshots at ratings-challenged NBC in his Tonight Show monologues, speculation is swirling the network is taking steps to replace the host with Jimmy Fallon next year and move the show from LA to New York.

NBC confirmed on Wednesday it's creating a new studio for Fallon in New York, where he hosts Late Night. But the network did not comment on a report that the digs at its Rockefeller Plaza headquarters may become home to a transplanted, Fallon-hosted Tonight.

The New York Times reported the plan in a Wednesday story, citing unidentified network executives. The Hollywood Reporter had a March 1 report about a Fallon-Leno switch, which was denied by the network.

Looming over NBC is its messy, failed effort to replace Leno with Conan O'Brien, which ended in 2010 with Leno regaining Tonight and NBC losing O'Brien - who got a $US45 million exit deal - to TBS. Leno's current Tonight contract expires in September 2014.

That occurred under a different regime, before NBCUniversal was taken over by Philadelphia-based Comcast, which has a reputation for discipline. While NBC dithered and backtracked on its Tonight succession plan involving O'Brien, Comcast is likely to be more decisive.

"I don't know if it's possible to have a less orderly transition than Leno-O'Brien," said analyst Brad Adgate of media-buying firm Horizon Media.

Fallon contacted Leno in an effort to help smooth the potential switch, according to a Hollywood Reporter story Wednesday.

US President Barack Obama talks with Jay Leno during a commercial break during the taping of an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in October. Picture: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

The latest roiling of the late-night waters began in January when ABC moved Jimmy Kimmel Live back to 11.35pm to offer direct competition to Leno and CBS' David Letterman.

With the potential for Kimmel, 45, to draw advertiser-favoured young viewers away from Leno (62) and Letterman (65), it's unsurprising that their networks might step up their succession planning.

At 38, Fallon is the youngest of the pack.

Leno, who took over Tonight from Johnny Carson in 1992, did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment. But he might be taking advantage of other ways to communicate - the Tonight stage and its audience of millions.

Although late-night hosts are known for needling their network bosses on-air, the timing of Leno's latest jabs at NBC seemed to make the network particularly uncomfortable. They reportedly asked him to stop; he hasn't.

"You know the whole legend of St. Patrick, right? St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland - and then they came to the United States and became NBC executives," Leno joked on Monday's show.

On Tuesday, he played off a news report about a Serbian woman with a rare brain condition that causes her to see the world upside down: "Isn't that crazy? It's unbelievable. She sees everything upside down. In fact, she thinks NBC is at the top of the ratings."

He kept up the pace Wednesday, according to a NBC transcript released after the show's taping. Leno quipped that scientists may be able to clone extinct species and bring them back from the dead, "so there's hope for NBC."

Leno, who briefly moved to prime-time to make room for O'Brien, has proved himself a wily survivor. Despite the challenge from Kimmel, he and Tonight have remained the top-rated late night talk show so far.

But if a change is destined, NBC could be eying next year's Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as a premium launch pad for a revamped Tonight, analyst Mr Adgate said.

"If they're going to do it, it makes sense to do it when NBC is dominating television for 17 days," he said, and can heavily promote the Tonight switch.

"They could have Fallon in Sochi, talking it up."

In the April issue of GQ magazine, Late Night producer Lorne Michaels, who also helms Saturday Night Live, said a transition to Fallon had "an inevitability to it," adding that he was "the closest to Carson that I've seen of this generation."
 

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Today Tonight duped by internet trolls

Facebeef have pranked Today Tonight sending a female 'victim' onto the show who turns out to be one of them

Jasmine Vanmidde puts on her act for the Today Tonight cameras last night. Source: Supplied

Jasmine Vanmidde and Lewis Spears (aka Nebz Adlay) are members of internet troll Tristan Barkers online army. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied

Internet troll Tristan Barker. Picture: Kerry Grant, Herald On Sunday NZ Source: Supplied

NOTORIOUS internet troll Tristan Barker's online army has struck again - this time duping Today Tonight into running a bogus story.

Channel 7 branded Barker "the world's nastiest man" on Monday night when Today Tonight ran a lead exposé into his online behaviour of harassment and ridicule.

During the story Barker was interviewed dressed in full Nazi regalia.

As part of the 10 minute story, Today Tonight interviewed supposed cyber bully victim Jasmine Vanmidde, who last night went under the name "Jasmine Frost".

The teenager complained of cyber-bullying and harassment at the hands of Barker's "Facebeef" Facebook page. She claimed to have received pornographic images from Barker and his posse.

"It's just like anything, if you sit in silence, nothing's going to be done," she said on the current affairs program, explaining why she was appearing.

It is understood Melbourne-based Vanmidde approached Today Tonight last week when she learned the show was preparing a story about Barker and asked to be interviewed.

But everything fell to pieces last night when it emerged Vanmidde was in fact a member of Barker's online trolling community and was spruiking a fictitious story to reporter David Eccleston.

In a YouTube video posted a few hours after the Today Tonight show aired, she boasted:

"All it took was an email entitled ‘Tristan Barker cyber bullied me' and then a three minute phone call to convince one of the most watched and believed news programs in Australia that I was a poor bullied girl, when in reality I'm a member of the Facebeef team and have been so for the better part of a year."

The video had accumulated in excess of 70,000 YouTube views this morning.

Vanmidde posted on Facebook shortly after the program: "If I was Today Tonight, I would be feeling a little bit silly right now".

The apparent sleight of hand has been met with praise and adoration from Barker's loyal network of fans, with Vanmidde's revelation garnering nearly 4000 "likes" and over 70 thousand Youtube views.

At the end of the video she kisses Lewis Spears aka "Nebz Adlay" – Barker's chief offsider who is temporarily fronting his social media claiming Barker has been restricted from speaking publicly – on the lips.

It is believed Vanmidde and Spears are romantically linked.

Today Tonight executive producer John Choueifate told News Ltd the show was not made aware of the young lady's identity until after it aired.

"She's nothing more than an attention seeker," he said. "We took her at face value and went to every measure to ensure her story stacked up, as we do with every guest.

"We found evidence to suggest that she had been bullied by Tristan Barker…when people are using fake names it gets very difficult to control.""

He confirmed Today Tonight would be running a correction this evening.

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