TBS says Conan O'Brien will debut on the cable channel in November with a late-night talk show Mondays through Thursdays at 10 p.m.
Here's TBS' announcement:
"Comedy icon Conan O'Brien is joining TBS to host a late-night talk show that is expected to debut in November. The Emmy-winning comedian's new program will be followed by Lopez Tonight, which will shift to a midnight time slot.
"O'Brien began talks in earnest with TBS just last week, after George Lopez personally called him to ask that he consider joining the network's late-night line-up. 'I can't think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as my lead-in,' Lopez said. 'It's the beginning of a new era in late-night comedy.'
"Said O'Brien: 'In three months I've gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I'm headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.'
"O'Brien and Lopez will give TBS a dynamic lineup in late-night television. TBS -- which has built a programming slate that appeals to a young, diverse audience -- expects O'Brien to be a long-term addition to the network's late-night landscape. O'Brien will host his hour-long, yet-to-be-titled show Mondays through Thursdays at 10 p.m.
"With the addition of O'Brien's show, TBS will establish two hours of late-night talk. Lopez Tonight, while just a few months old,has already become a destination show for a diverse audience. The Lopez Tonight audience is young as well, with a median age of just 34."
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
