On September 27, 2004, the 50th anniversary of The Tonight Show's debut, NBC announced that Conan O'Brien would take over the show in 2009. Leno was still leading the late-night ratings, but O'Brien was promised the show, so that he would not leave NBC. NBC did not want to lose Leno either, and created
The Jay Leno Show (2009), the first nightly network primetime talk show. In 2010, due to poor ratings for both O'Brien and Leno's shows, NBC wanted to move Leno's show into O'Brien's timeslot, with O'Brien's "Tonight Show" airing at 12:05 a.m. O'Brien publicly announced that he would rather leave the show than allow that to happen. NBC and O'Brien reached a settlement to allow him to leave the show seven months into his tenure. Leno returned to "The Tonight Show" in March 2010.
