NBC will announce in May its plans to replace current Tonight Show host Jay Leno with the increasingly popular Jimmy Fallon. This, according to the Hollywood Reporter, who cite “two high-level industry insiders,” despite NBC’s denial and a rep for Leno who said, “we don’t speculate on rumor.” The Hollywood Reporter piece goes on to say the following:
Sources believe the network will bring in Fallon partly out of concern about the competition on ABC, which moved younger-skewing Jimmy Kimmel to the 11:35 time slot in January. “The more time Jimmy Kimmel is in that slot, the more the young audience goes that way, the harder it is for Jimmy [Fallon] to keep that audience,” says a source familiar with the network’s thinking.
The network, according to the sources, plans to move Fallon from his 12:35 am Late Night slot into Leno’s current slot at 11:35 pm in the summer of 2014 with the official premiere scheduled that Fall.
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