The New Host Of 'The Tonight Show' - Carson Daly?

Jay Leno's current contract with NBC is up in 2014 and as much as he and rival David Letterman seemed locked in a "I'm going to be the last one standing no matter what" death match, it's clear to nearly everyone else in the world that it's time for both men to gracefully step away from their shows.

The CBS challenge with Letterman is another story entirely, but when you look at NBC and "The Tonight Show," there is a lot of bungled history to overcome in any attempt to find a new host. I'm not to recap the already familiar history of the Leno/Letterman battle for the job or the disaster that was Conan O'Brien's attempt to helm the show. But even Johnny Carson's eventual naming to the job in 1962 was filled with months of faux guest hosts and bad PR from the network. So whatever else you can say about the process of picking a new host, you can't much go by precedent. In every occurrence, it's been handled with all the grace and tact of a drunk Carrot Top shopping at a 99 cent store.

Most of the public talk about a replacement for Leno centers around current "Late Night" host Jimmy Fallon. Partly because Fallon has a solid fan base. But there's also this feeling among a lot of observers that it's "his time." Aside from the fact that so far no one has successfully transitioned from "Late Night" to "The Tonight Show," a decision to choose Fallon would face the same challenge brought on when Conan O'Brien made the same move.

O'Brien is a talented guy, but based on the level of his success at TBS, it's clear that there is a ceiling in the size of his audience. While he has scores of devoted fans, he doesn't appear to have the wide appeal to dominate in the ratings. And that's fine, not everyone has to be #1 to be considered a creative or business success. But "The Tonight Show" is a huge cash cow for NBC and its affiliates and they can't afford another misstep.

Fallon is also an extremely talented guy and I'm not sure there's ever been a host that is so comfortable with music as part of every segment of this show. But it's difficult for me to see how his style of hosting can successfully widen the audience enough to be a success an hour earlier. Once again, there's nothing wrong with that. But you have to step back from the emotion of the decision and examine it all from a strictly bottom line point of view.

So if not Fallon, then who is left as a possibility? The best host without a talk show right now is Chris Rock, but he would never consider the idea. And thanks to Dave and Jay's paranoia and insecurity, the networks don't have anyone on deck who has had experience as a guest host. Even worse, both hosts are very stingy with timeslots for stand-ups, so the pool of people with TV experience and the possible ability to host is extremely shallow.

As you think about it, another question comes to mind. Does the host necessarily have to be a comic? That's certainly been the case in recent years, but even Letterman was only a modestly talented stand-up. What he brought to the table was a willingness to do or try anything and a good ear for hosting. He's funny, but what has often made him magical was his on-camera poise and his ability to take control of any situation.

Which is a long way of getting to why I think Carson Daly would be a great fit for the "Tonight Show" host spot. He's got more on-camera experience as a host than just about anyone on TV under 50. He's got a deep knowledge of pop culture and the poise that allows him to handle just about anything. And as "The Voice" has shown, Daly has an ability to connect with viewers and with people one-on-one. It's a rare gift and one that is essential if you're going to crank out five hours of live programming each week.

Granted, you would have to tweak the format of "The Tonight Show" to best fit his skillset. But that's something that probably needs to take place anyway. Jimmy Kimmel is arguably the hottest person in late night right now and much of it is due to his willingness to shake things up and get beyond the notions of what a talk show could look like. Daly has lots of poise and it would be a fun challenge to build a show around him.

There are going to be those people who point to Daly's early experience on NBC's late night schedule, when the original version of "Last Call" was based in New York and was more or less a traditional talk show. Aside from the fact that was more than decade ago, that show had production problems and budgetary challenges that prevented Daly from ever really finding his talk show equilibrium. Even a later move to California left Daly with a Frankenstein of a show that seemed to be assembled from bits of parts discarded from the other NBC talkers.

The other issue is that until the success of "The Voice," Daly wasn't especially valued by NBC. The network threatened to cancel "Last Call" to accommodate Leno's return back to late night TV in 2010. At one point he even crashed the audience of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to ask Kimmel during a Q&A "What will happen to my show?"

"Last Call" has been renewed and as NBC uses Daly more, the network execs seem to be more comfortable with him. That doesn't mean that any of them would consider him for "The Tonight Show" hosting job. But if they don't, if they go with the "easy" choice of Jimmy Fallon, then they risk another ratings meltdown simply because they decided to play it safe.

"The Tonight Show with Carson Daly." It kind of has a nice ring to it.