$40m can’t save NBC from Conan O’Brien’s insults

American viewers of The Tonight Show on NBC are enjoying quite a spectacle as Conan O'Brien, waiting for lawyers to seal the deal on his reported $40m pay-off, sees out his final week as host with a series of jabs at his bosses. They are coming from the presenter himself and from his guests.

O'Brien is getting out because NBC need to give the long-running show back to Jay Leno after ditching their doomed experiment, introduced last summer to showcase Leno at 10pm. Viewers, it turned out, want hospital and cop dramas at 10pm - not late night chat.

Having made the decision to move Leno from 10pm back to 11.35, the network offered to put O'Brien on later - after Leno. The Irish-American comedian thought a show in the small hours was too much of a comedown and decided to quit.

As a result, Coco, as his fans call him, is enjoying what is looking increasingly like an Irish wake for his near eight-month stint as host.

There are pro-Conan rallies and Team Coco T-shirts everywhere. "You have to wonder where all these fans were hiding during the last seven months as The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien opened to mediocre ratings and steadily slid," writes Mary McNamara, TV critic of the Los Angeles Times.

Last night's guest, director Quentin Tarantino, offered to help O'Brien make a revenge movie. "They pushed him too far," Tarantino growled, suggesting how the trailer might go. "They made promises they had no intention of keeping. They took his show, they killed his dog... They had their way and now Conan will have his."

Because of his pay-off negotiations, O'Brien himself is not supposed to say anything derogatory about NBC. He has got round this by singing his criticism and, on another night, speaking in Spanish. His judgment of NBC executives has been translated as: "Brainless sons of goats who eat money and crap trouble."

With a host of comic actors lined up for the rest of the week, no one knows how far this could go. He's got Adam Sandler and Robin Williams booked and, for his final show on Friday, Will Ferrell, who was the first-ever guest when The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien launched on June 1.

If Conan O'Brien can get away with this, what on earth might Jonathan Ross have up his sleeve for his final episodes of Friday Night With Jonathan Ros/ before taking his leave of the BBC this summer? "Jonathan isn't live, it's pre-recorded," said a BBC producer questioned by The First Post. "For a good reason." ·