Chelsea Handler Being Courted for New Late Night Program

Chelsea Handler, according to a recent report in the New York Post, has quietly become a hot commodity to host her own late night talk show.

"There's definitely been discussion on what I want to do when I go to a real network," Handler says. "Of course, I'd be interested.

"But it's a little premature," she says. "I don't like to think about my next job when I'm thinking about my first job."

The reason why these rumors are surfacing at this point is because of the shakeups that are happening on the late night scene in 2009.

The biggest fish is Jay Leno, who will not be with NBC again next year. Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon are locked into the late night slots on NBC, and David Letterman and Craig Ferguson are locks with CBS (although how long Letterman will stay on is still up in the air).

But that leaves ABC, which currently only has Jimmy Kimmel Live on its late night lineup, allegedly open to acquiring Leno to boost their late night ratings.

The sleeper in all of this is Fox, who seems to be the most likely to hire Handler as well as Leno to make an immediate splash against the other three big networks.

Stay tuned for more news about this, though.