Conan Signs With … TBS?

In this image released by NBC, Conan O'Brien, center, of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" mock-punches Jon Stewart, left, from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" during an appearance on O'Brien's show, Monday, Feb. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/NBC, Dana Edelson) ** NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT: NBC ** Original Filename: YE_Top_10_Web_Videos_NYET538.jpg

TBS announced today that Conan O’Brien will bring his talk show to TBS in November. The 10 p.m. CST show will follow a similar format to his “Tonight” and “Late Night” gigs on NBC, with George Lopez’ talker bumped back to 11 p.m. CST.

This was a shocker, since the conventional wisdom on Conan was that he was likely going to Fox, or possibly doing a trial run at FX before stepping up to the network level. But all things being what they are these days, it makes sense that Conan went with a basic cable model instead of the traditional network deal: more freedom to do what he wants, and he gets to be on what is shaping up to be the right side of history. The networks are not the quality players they once were, and in the case of NBC, Conan’s old home is only now getting smart about its 2010-11 season after years of chintzy, lowball programming.

An amazing turn of events.