It’s official. After more than a week of negotiations and on-air battles, Conan O’Brien has signed a deal to turn over The Tonight Show to Jay Leno.  Conan will do his last show on Friday and Leno will take over on March 1, 2010.

Don’t feel too bad for Conan. NBC will give him $33 million in severance pay, of which his staff will get $12 million. So what’s the catch? He’s agreed not to take over his old show from Jimmy Fallon. Conan will be a free agent to go to any network he wishes. There are also rumors that FOX may be interested in giving Conan his own show. If  FOX goes through with this deal, it will create a four-way ratings race for Leno, Conan, Kimmel and Letterman.

Personally, I think Conan got the shaft because he has a different style of humor than Jay Leno.  I enjoyed his late show oddities.

This is what made the show great. When he took over The Tonight Show, Conan dialed down the quirkiness.

When this first started, Conan O’Brien was ridiculed for criticizing Leno on the show. An NBC executive said Conan was “chicken-hearted and gutless to blame a guy you couldn’t beat in the ratings.” But the fact is Conan and Jay never went head to head and NBC was not completely sold on the idea of Conan taking over in the first place.

So I say go Conan. Run like the wind, go to FOX and let’s see what happens when you and Jay do go head to head. I hope you beat the socks off him.  This whole situation has left a nasty taste in my mouth. It is like if you replaced a guy that got promoted, then that guy could do the job and you got fired to give the guy his original job back. I used to be a fan of Jay’s but now, I may just pass on the show altogether.