No need to make a monkey of NBC when it has already succeeded in making an ass of itself.

With Jay Leno being cast as the bad guy in this drama, the worst is yet ahead for NBC...maybe. If Conan leaves and Jay returns to the tonight show, I am almost positive that the tonight show will falter in a big way. People love Jay (and Conan), but there are at least two things against Jay's success:

1) He's now looked at, rightly or wrongly, as the "bad guy." That's going to hurt.

2) There is something distasteful about the whole thing, the "Oops, we made a mistake and we're going to fix it." The old saying of "You can never go back" is in play here...it simply will not be the same.

If Jay returns to the Tonight Show, it will falter.

Here are some ideas:

1) Jay and Conan BOTH quit, join forces, and become the most potent late night team (perhaps with Conan again following Leno) in history, offering themselves as a single package to FOX or ABC, for a bazillion dollars.

2) Move the Jay Leno show to a once a week--and amp it WAY UP.

3) Move the Jay Leno show to a daytime TV spot, competing with, perhaps, soap operas, etc.

4) Jay to "fall on his sword" and quit, but that he and Conan work to rewrite the story so that it is all management's fault, and that Jay was nothing but a good guy and refused to hurt Conan, blah, blah, blah