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Will ‘Tonight Show’ head back to NYC?

Mayor Bloomberg asks Conan O’Brien to bring the show back
/ Source: The Associated Press

Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried to get a promise from Conan O’Brien on Tuesday to bring the “Tonight” show back to New York when he takes over as host from Jay Leno in 2009.

“It’s not up to me, I work for the man. If he says ‘yeah,’ we’re fine. So we’ll talk,” O’Brien told Bloomberg, who appeared on his current NBC show, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.”

The “Tonight” show, with Johnny Carson as its host, moved from Rockefeller Center to Burbank, Calif., in 1972.

NBC announced last fall that O’Brien will succeed Leno.

“The rumor is you’ll get a new show one of these days,” Bloomberg hinted to O’Brien, who moments earlier had been pestering Bloomberg to help him secure a park permit for the “Late Night” softball team.

In exchange for a permit, Bloomberg told O’Brien he couldn’t leave New York, and the studio audience cheered.

O’Brien said he might need more incentives to sweeten the deal, such as renaming the Holland Tunnel “The Cone Zone.”