Los Angeles , California -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- NBC host Jay Leno is going back to late nights after a low-rated experiment in prime time , the network announced Sunday . Leno 's prime-time talk show , which debuted in September , `` did n't meet affiliates ' needs , '' said Jeff Gaspin , chairman of NBC Universal Television Entertainment . The program will go off the air February 12 , when the 2010 Winter Olympics begin . The network is now negotiating with Leno and its current late-night hosts , Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon , to decide who ends up with which time slot , Gaspin said . O'Brien took over NBC 's flagship `` Tonight Show '' when Leno moved to the 10 p.m. slot in September . Fallon took over O'Brien 's former show , `` Late Night . '' Gaspin said the plan now is for Leno to host a new , half-hour show at 11:35 p.m. ET , followed by `` Tonight '' with O'Brien at 12:05 a.m. Fallon 's show would move to the 1 a.m. hour , he said . Do you think NBC did the right thing ? The goal is to keep all three hosts , but nothing was a done deal as of Sunday , he said . Reports of the shakeup first emerged last week . Leno dismissed them on his show on Thursday night , telling his audience , `` It 's always been my experience NBC only cancels you when you 're in first place . '' Leno 's move to prime time was a risk for NBC , because it put a talk show up against scripted prime-time shows and ran it five days a week . Network spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said last week that Leno performed `` exactly as we anticipated on the network . '' But for NBC 's affiliates , Leno 's low ratings were taking viewers -- and the resulting ad dollars -- away from their late local newscasts . `` The 11 o'clock news hours were bleeding ratings , '' said Stuart Levine , an analyst for the entertainment trade paper Variety . While NBC appeared to be fine with Leno 's numbers , the affiliates `` kind of revolted and said we have to have better ratings , '' Levine said . Michael Fiorile , the chairman of NBC 's affiliate board , called the decision announced Sunday `` a great move for the affiliates , the network and , most importantly , the viewers . '' `` We admire their willingness to innovate , and their willingness to change course when it did n't work for us , '' Fiorile said in a written statement . For NBC , which had promised to give Leno a full year in the 10 p.m. time slot , `` It 's certainly a little bit of egg on the face , '' Levine said . Mediaweek analyst Marc Berman called the network 's gamble on Leno `` the biggest fiasco in the history of television . '' `` What they did n't realize was that the people who watched Leno in late night were not necessarily the same people who watched in prime time , so there was no reason to believe that his audience would follow him to prime time , '' Berman said . Meanwhile , the O'Brien-helmed `` Tonight '' lost about half its audience `` and actually really hurt late night , which is a big profit center for NBC , '' Berman said . Moving `` Tonight '' -- which has held its current slot for decades -- back a half-hour is likely to hurt the show , and Berman predicted that NBC will be unable to keep all three hosts . `` My guess is down the road , they will give back Leno the ` Tonight Show , ' leave it on at 11:35 p.m. , and Conan will move to Fox , '' he said . `` But if I was either one of those gentlemen , I would be looking elsewhere right now . '' CNN 's Doug Hyde contributed to this report .