Doubts on Conan?

Maybe it's just a negotiating tactic, but News Corp.'s Roger Ailes sounds less than overwhelmed about having Conan O'Brien hosting a late-night show on Fox. "It's a tough time period," said Ailes, who oversees the Fox's television stations and presumably would have a big say a Conan show. As posted by the LAT's Joe Flynt, Ailes said that existing contracts for late-night programming would have to be written off - and in markets like L.A. and NY, that's no small matter. Ailes then clammed up, saying "I don't want to influence discussions." Late-night has always been a tough sell on Fox - or have you forgotten Joan Rivers, Arsenio Hall, Chevy Chase, and Magic Johnson (gosh, did the Magic man really have a talk show or was it some kind of alternate universe dream?). No offense to Conan, who is clearly more capable than the above cast of characters, but there are some built-in disadvantages. From Broadcasting & Cable:

Sources say Fox brass has asked the Fox-owned stations to run the numbers, and stations have responded that they expect they would lose millions if the local outlets had to give a late-night hour back to the network. The Fox affiliates fall somewhere between lukewarm and intrigued about the notion of O'Brien shifting to their late night air, perhaps at 11:30. Some wonder why he should expect to do better on Fox after posting lagging ratings during his Tonight Show run, while others say he's a rare bankable talent that may be a free agent. One Fox affiliate insider warned that Chevy Chase also seemed to be a good fit for Fox in late night some time ago: a household name that matched up well with the Fox demographic. Chase's Fox show of course flamed out quickly in the early 90s. "They thought there might be some flow there, but it just didn't happen," says the affiliate. "It's like drilling for oil--you just don't know what you're going to get."