A hard-hitting Leno question from a faker

The Television Critics Assn. Press Tour, the semiannual gathering of television journalists from around the country that began July 8, continues at the Beverly Hilton. We offer these dispatches.

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A mystery journalist, claiming to work for the Sarasota Star Herald Tribune, appeared at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday to demand answers from ABC President of Entertainment Stephen McPherson.

The reporter wanted to know if it was true that ABC, the network that is home to “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” is actively courting Jay Leno, who is going to be a free agent in 2009 when NBC replaces him with Conan O’Brien as the new host of “The Tonight Show.”

The rumors that ABC wants Leno have swirled for months and resurfaced recently when Leno cracked a joke on his show while holding up a TV Week cover that said, “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno . . . Starring Jay Leno on ABC.”

McPherson declined to comment as the room erupted in laughter when TV critics realized that the person asking the question was Kimmel.

“If you were really to talk to Jay Leno, wouldn’t you go to jail for that?” pressed Kimmel, who had been hiding in the back of the room in a baseball cap and jeans. “Are you at all afraid that if you replace Jimmy Kimmel he might do something crazy to you or your car?”

“Because [Leno] cracked the joke, I knew we would get the question,” said McPherson, who came up with the gag with Kimmel on Tuesday. “And I’m close to Jimmy, and I was talking to him yesterday about some other things, and I said, ‘You know I’m going to get questioned about this thing, I just want you to know.’ We’ve been transparent about everything with Jimmy and telling him what’s going on, and I said, ‘Why don’t you come over and ask the question yourself?’ And he was kind enough to do it. He’s actually on hiatus.”

If NBC follows through on its plans to get rid of Leno, McPherson said, there is “absolutely a possibility” that he would look at adding Leno to his lineup while keeping Kimmel, possibly in an earlier slot.

“I think there’s absolutely room for both,” McPherson said. “I think they would be an interesting pairing. I still can’t believe that NBC is going to actually let him go. . . . Somebody like Leno doesn’t come along every year. That’s a huge possibility. Shuffling the night is certainly a possibility. Late night is a place where there’s real upside and there’s certainly revenue to be gained.”

McPherson also addressed the rumors of Katherine Heigl’s departure from “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of television’s top-rated dramas. The kerfuffle erupted recently when Heigl did not submit an entry for Emmy consideration, explaining that her character Izzie’s story line last season did not warrant the award.

That immediately stirred speculation that Heigl was preparing to exit the popular series and later fueled media reports that creator Shonda Rhimes was preparing to kill off the character.

“She’s absolutely staying with the show,” McPherson said. “There’s an unbelievable story line for her this year, which is really essential to everything that’s going to go on this year. We’re really excited about that. Shonda Rhimes is really excited about that and is the one who actually crafted that.”

McPherson sought to calm the waters, calling Heigl “a fantastically talented actress” and adding that “it’s unfortunate when there’s any kind of turmoil on a show.” He also gently chided Heigl for her criticism of the writers, saying that it was “really unfortunate.”

“There’s so many people who work so unbelievably hard to make that show the No. 1 show in the country,” McPherson said.

“I think it’s a beautifully written, beautifully acted, beautifully produced show. Everyone from the grips to the writers to the [executive producers], I think, deserves an enormous amount of credit. And I never like to see any of them in any way taken lightly.”

Rhimes is also the creator and show runner of “Private Practice,” which launched last fall as one of the biggest new shows of the year but later experienced a ratings sag. Rhimes is apparently in the process of refocusing the “Grey’s” spinoff to include more dramatic medical stories.

“Shonda realized that one of the things that was critical was that the best episodes always included unbelievable medical drama,” McPherson said. “When it’s just a soap opera, there’s a lot of time talking in the coffee room. . . . It didn’t feel like a real business or that there were real stakes, like at the hospital.”