TVSpy
With Conan O’Brien preparing for the November debut of his new show on TBS, his former “Tonight Show” studio is getting a new tenant. NBC Universal announced on Thursday that the Los Angeles NBC-affiliate KNBC would move their news operation into the 60,000-square-foot studio that has been home to “The Jack Benny Show” and “Knight Rider,” in addition to O’Brien’s “Tonight.”
NBC is investing “tens of millions of dollars,” The Los Angeles Times estimates, into renovating Stage One. “This is a significant investment in our West Coast news operations and ensures that the incredibly talented teams at KNBC and LA’s NBC News Bureau will have the latest technologies and journalistic tools to continue doing what they do best,” Jeff Zucker, NBCU President and CEO, said in making the announcement.
NBCU has been planning a new studio for KNBC and NBC News’ LA Bureau for the last few years. As Variety points out, the company announced in 2007 that it would move its LA news headquarters to a new development across the street from Universal Studios. That development has been tied up in legal issues, though, and isn’t expected to open until 2016.
KNBC is expected to move into its new home sometime in 2012. One can only hope that its tenure there will be longer than O’Brien’s.