Jay Leno will be replaced by Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, NBC has officially announced.
The move in February 2014, which was widely anticipated, will see the show relocate from Los Angeles to New York.
NBC also said Lorne Michaels, the renowned producer of Saturday Night Live, will produce The Tonight Show.
Jay Leno will be replaced by Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show
NBC head Steve Burke said the network was making the change while the show was at the peak of its ratings.
“Jimmy Fallon is a unique talent and this is his time,” Steve Burke said.
NBC used the same strategy when handing the show over to Jay Leno from Johnny Carson, its previous host.
Jimmy Fallon will reportedly begin on The Tonight Show during NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics, when the network expects to see a spike in its audience.
Correspondents say NBC executives were concerned a rival late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on the ABC network would make gains among the crucial younger audience if Jimmy Fallon’s move did not happen quickly.
This is the second time in recent years NBC has sought to replace Jay Leno, who has hosted The Tonight Show from Los Angeles since 1992.
In 2009, NBC handed the show over to Conan O’Brien, but the move backfired and the network reinstalled Jay Leno.
This time, Jay Leno has congratulated Jimmy Fallon on the promotion.
“I hope you’re as lucky as me and hold on to the job until you’re the old guy,” Jay Leno said in a statement.
“If you need me, I’ll be at the garage.”
Meanwhile, in a reference to his current show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, which begins at 00:30 ET, Fallon said: “I’m really excited to host a show that starts today instead of tomorrow.”
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[googlead tip=”patrat_mediu” aliniat=”stanga”]A website forum, which is frequently utilized to spread Al-Qaeda’s dispatches, has posted a death threat against David Letterman.
The jihadist website post, which was issued by frequent commenter on the forum, has threatened David Letterman, urging Muslim followers to “cut the tongue” of the Late Show host because of a joke the comic made on his CBS show.
According to the SITE Intelligence Group, a private company for sites monitoring service, that tracks extremists websites online activity, the threat was posted Tuesday on the Shumuka al-Islam forum, a popular Internet destination for radical Muslims.
David Letterman was death threatened on a Jihadist website
The poster, who identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi, was reacting to what he said David Letterman did after the US military announced on June 5 that a drone strike in Pakistan had killed al Qaeda leader Ilyas Kashmiri.[googlead tip=”lista_mica” aliniat=”dreapta”]
Umar al-Basrawi wrote:
“Is there not amongst you a Sayyid Nosair al-Masri (may Allah release him) to cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever. Just as Sayyid (may Allah release him) did with the Jew Kahane.”
[googlead tip=”vertical_mic”]Al-Basrawi also wrote that David Letterman had made reference to both Osama bin Laden and Kashmiri and said that Letterman had demonstrated on his neck how Kashmiri died.
Sayyid Nosair al-Masri was tried for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990.
According to Adam Raisman, SITE analyst, the Shumukh-al-Islam forum is a site where messages from Al Qaeda frequently first appear online in the United States.
“It’s a clearing house for Al-Qaeda material. It gets the most Al-Qaeda supporters,” he said.
Adam Raisman ranked the threat as more worrisome than the “warning” posted against South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone last year.
“This was a more explicit threat,” he said.
“It was direct and to the point.”
David Letterman, who is not Jewish, apparently made jokes on the accused terrorist leader Ilyas Kashmiri death, who was killed by an US airstrike in Pakistan on June 5. The forum contributor said Letterman put a hand to his neck and demonstrated the “way of slaughter.”
“He showed his evil nature and deep hatred for Islam and Muslims, and said that Ilyas Kashmiri was killed and he joined bin Laden,” he wrote.
“We ask Allah to paralyze his tongue and grant the sincere monotheists his neck.”
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The news was first reported by Stars and Stripes.
SITE group is now trying to find out more information about the commenter, who has more than 1,200 messages on the forum. Adam Raisman also advised David Letterman to take “as much precaution as he would with an obsessed fan.”
There was no comment from CBS or Letterman.
