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Hello and welcome to the month of June. Loadsa things happening, especially in the TV racket. Talk, mostly.

In the world at large, June is the month of weddings, of celebrations and renewal. It's not a month we associate with death or decline. And yet, I think, in the TV racket, we're looking at a very public, very slow death unfolding. I'm talking about The Tonight Show.

This Conan O'Brien guy, a veteran and successful talk-show host, sure got taken for a ride when he thought he was landing one of the most important and powerful jobs in the TV universe.

O'Brien takes over as host of The Tonight Show (NBC, 11:35 p.m.) tonight and, usually, this would be so totally major that it would suck up every iota of TV-racket coverage. But, no. That Leno guy has stolen the limelight. The outgoing Tonight Show host will get his own show later this summer, on the same network. It will air every weeknight at 10 p.m., and so far it sounds an awful lot like The Tonight Show.

Not long ago - mere weeks, really - there was a major media fuss about one Jimmy Fallon, who took over the Late Night With ... slot from O'Brien on NBC. Fallon, who often comes across as an unusually excitable 16 year old, now has a show relentlessly aimed at a young audience, and it's doing quite nicely.

Thus, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien will soon be sandwiched between two other talk/variety shows. And, frankly, O'Brien is likely to be the baloney in the sandwich.

What we are watching, probably, is the slow death of The Tonight Show as an institution in the U.S. popular culture. It's dying because NBC is killing it with a punch here and a stab in the back there. Of course, it's perfectly possible that Jay Leno's show will be a disaster, especially in the ratings, if a competing network has a hot drama airing at 10 on a weeknight. But NBC won't let go of Leno's show easily or quickly. For a start, rumour has it that Leno will walk away with tens of millions of dollars if the plug is pulled early.

NBC is crowding the hours between 10 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. with three similar-looking chat/variety shows and hoping that all three succeed. There is no way that's going to happen.

Any speculation about O'Brien's potential success is now irrelevant. He's getting a job that's truly special - following in the steps of Leno, Johnny Carson, Jack Paar and Steve Allen. But the power and glamour of the job have evaporated. He'll be competing for viewers with Leno and with David Letterman. For booking guests, the show will be competing with Leno, Letterman and Jimmy Fallon.

About the only way that O'Brien can steal back the limelight is if he gets Susan Boyle as a guest and she promises copious use of the f-word. Preferably aimed at children. Apparently Boyle has been showing the strain of overnight success and is struggling to deal with all the attention in Britain. Her response, according to reports, is to swear a blue streak and tell people to, you know, just eff-off.

Get her on The Tonight Show and annoy her into a hissy fit. That's my advice to O'Brien.

O'Brien's first guest tonight is actually Will Ferrell. For the rest of the week the scheduled guests include Tom Hanks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bradley Cooper, Gywneth Paltrow and Ryan Seacrest and musical guests Pearl Jam, Green Day, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer and Chickenfoot.

Oh Lordy. You've probably heard of the irony-laden website Stuff White People Like. Well, you don't need to consult it. Just look at O'Brien's guest list. Except it is done without irony.

In the end, though, that's beside the point. What happens tonight on The Tonight Show is an anti-climax. With Leno's show coming and Jimmy Fallon succeeding, O'Brien is in an impossible position. He's the dull meat in a dull sandwich. All that talk and nothing significant will happen.

Check local listings.

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Also airing tonight

I'M A CELEBRITY: GET ME OUT OF HERE! (NBC, 8 p.m.) is just what you've been waiting for. Not. The so-called celebs include Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt (MTV's The Hills), ex NBA-player and TV personality John Salley ( TheBest Damned Sports Show Period), model and TV star Janice Dickinson ( The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency), 2007 American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar, actor Stephen Baldwin (various bad movies) and professional wrestler and beauty queen Torrie Wilson. The so-called celebrities are dropped into the heart of the jungle to "face fun and comedic challenges designed to test their survival skills." According to NBC, and I'm not making it up, "... hilarity will ensue and viewers will decide which celebrities stay or go. The last remaining star will be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle, winning a substantial cash prize for their favourite charity."

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED (HBO Canada, 8 p.m.) is an examination of the murk that surrounded Polanski being charged with statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977. And then fleeing the United States. For anyone too young to remember or unfamiliar with the case, it's a fascinating doc, less about Polanski than the L.A. legal circus that surrounded his case. The new villain who emerges along with Polanski is Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, who died in 1993. As Polanski's victim says in the program, "The judge was enjoying the publicity. He didn't care about what happened to me and he didn't care about what happened to Polanski." J.D.

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