Jimmy Fallon Show To Launch On Internet

This is so smart: Jimmy Fallon will test out material for his impending NBC late-night show online, getting a jump on audience building, branding, and working out the kinks months before his planned launch in 2009, when he takes over from Conan O'Brien, who will be taking over from Jay Leno.

The online material for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon will hit the Internet about "five or six months" in advance of launch, according to executive producer Lorne Michaels, who revealed the plan to reporters at the Television Critics Association. Michaels said it would "give us a chance to find the show." Michaels said that the material — likely sketches and jokes as opposed to interviews — will be posted around 12:30 a.m., "so people will begin to look for Jimmy at that time." Again: so smart.

Another savvy move: The show will not be inheriting the space from O'Brien, which would require striking his set and rebuilding a new one, delaying Fallon's launch. Instead, Fallon's show will be housed in Studio 6B — a NBC News studio recently freed up thanks to the new NBC/MSNBC studios — and will be able to go live in time to enjoy the benefit of a lead-in from Leno. Studio 6A, where O'Brien films, has been the home of NBC's Late Night for 27 years.

Michaels also said he'd told Fallon to "go out and do some standup," presumably to generate live-audience buzz and sharpen his comedy reflexes. New York comedy scenesters should expect to see him at the Upright Citizen's Brigade theater (UCB), where NBC comedy regulars like founder Amy Poehler of SNL), 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer, SNL's Jason Sudeikis and Seth Meyers are regularly found doing live shows (I'd guess Fallon will show up soon as a celebrity monologist at the Sunday night show, ASSSCAT, though since I still want to be able to get in just forget I said that).

The whole thing shows that Michaels has gotten up the internet learning curve pretty quickly (recall that it took SNL, and NBC, a while to embrace the world of online video, experiencing some growing pains after the viral sensations of "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick In A Box"). This year, SNL (and NBC) introduced embeddable players, and NBC launched its much-heralded online player Hulu.com.

Fallon Will Start 'Late Night' on the Web [NYT]
TCA: Jimmy Fallon's Late Night to Launch Online [B&C]