Filed under: Audio/Video, Celebrities

NBC has announced that Jimmy Fallon will be testing out his hosting chops in a trial run online this fall before debuting over the airwaves as the new host of ‘Late Night‘ in the spring.

Broadcast networks and cable channels typically air their top programs first and then redistribute them online through their own Web sites, video streaming sites like Joost or Hulu, and online download stores such as iTunes. According to show producer Lorne Michaels, who has helmed ‘Saturday Night Live‘ almost nonstop since it began in 1975 (and which also launched Fallon to national fame), the online-only effort will also allow Fallon to try out his material and get into a rhythm. The first Web performances will last only five to ten minutes.

In a game of late night comedy musical chairs, Fallon will be replacing Conan O’Brien at the 12:30 a.m. slot on NBC’s schedule, and O’Brien will replace Jay Leno on ‘The Tonight Show,’ which starts at 11:30 p.m. on weeknights.

The freedom of being online is one of the reasons Michaels stated for putting Fallon on the Web before sending him before a live studio audience, although they won’t be pushing decency boundaries too far. “I think we’re our own censors,” he said.

We’ll see. We figure Fallon will probably be a hoot on that traditionally funny time 12:30 a.m. time slot, Web-tryout or not. We just hope that Conan doesn’t stop being funny when he takes over the much more mainstream ‘Tonight Show’ lose a mere hour earlier. [Source: New York Times.]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under World news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.