The Tonight Show
Hosting history
From 1950 to 1951 NBC aired Broadway Open House, a nightly variety show hosted primarily by comic Jerry Lester. It was initially not a success (hosting five nights a week quickly burned through all of Lester's material faster than he could create it, and he was given rotating hosting duties for a weekly prime time variety show in 1951); the network scaled back late-night programming to shorter weekly shows.

The Tonight Show

Section Title: Hosting history
Table Section Text: From 1950 to 1951 NBC aired Broadway Open House, a nightly variety show hosted primarily by comic Jerry Lester. It was initially not a success (hosting five nights a week quickly burned through all of Lester's material faster than he could create it, and he was given rotating hosting duties for a weekly prime time variety show in 1951); the network scaled back late-night programming to shorter weekly shows.

Host	Start date	End date	Episodes

Steve Allen	September 27, 1954	January 25, 1957	2,000

Ernie Kovacs	October 1, 1956	January 22, 1957

Jack Lescoulie	January 28, 1957	June 21, 1957

Al "Jazzbo" Collins	June 24, 1957	July 26, 1957

Jack Paar	July 29, 1957	March 30, 1962

Various hosts	April 2, 1962	September 28, 1962

Johnny Carson	October 1, 1962	May 22, 1992	4,531

Jay Leno (first tenure)	May 25, 1992	May 29, 2009	3,775

Conan O'Brien	June 1, 2009	January 22, 2010	146

Jay Leno (second tenure)	March 1, 2010	February 6, 2014	835

Jimmy Fallon	February 17, 2014	present	1,059

Sentence(s)

O'Brien hosted 146 episodes over the course of less than eight months before Leno was brought back as host, where he served for almost four additional years.

final_sentence: O'Brien hosted 146 episodes over the course of less than eight months before Leno was brought back as host, where he served for almost four additional years.