Conan O’Brien’s Conaco production company is moving closer to setting up shop on the Warner Bros. lot, as TheWrap first predicted earlier this month.
No deal’s done yet, but Warner Bros. TV remains in deep talks with Team Coco to shift Conaco from NBC Universal to the sister studio of O’Brien’s new home TBS, three people familiar with the situation told TV MoJoe Saturday night. An agreement could be wrapped up by month’s end, the insiders said.
The deal has been a no-brainer since the April 12 announcement that O’Brien was head to Turner’s TBS, which, like WBTV, is part of the Time Warner family. Turner chief Steve Koonin told TheWrap then that he wanted to do "multiple projects together," making it inevitable that there’d be a production deal with WBTV.
As TV MoJoe wrote:
Given the substantial investment Turner and Time Warner are making in O’Brien, it seems a given that the company will want to stake a claim to all of O’Brien’s creative content.
O’Brien’s manager, Gavin Polone, also indicated at the time that he and O’Brien’s reps at WME were looking to shift Conaco– and bring production and development chief David Kissinger along.
"We are hopeful and confident that we’ll land a deal for the production company," Polone said. "Kissinger has done a great job. We very much want to stay attached to him."
UPDATED 10:15 AM 4/25: Warner Bros. declined comment.
