With the success of Steve Allen as the first host of "The Tonight Show", NBC gave him his own primetime variety hour in June 1956. Over the next seven months, Allen's "Tonight" duties were limited to three nights a week, with Ernie Kovacs filling in on Mondays and Tuesdays. With this heavy work load and his new show a success, Allen departed "Tonight" in January 1957. For the next six months, NBC renamed and replaced its late-night programing with a multihosted, multicity-based talk show which became a huge, embarrassing failure. In need of a hit, the network soon returned to a proven formula by reviving "Tonight" and hiring Jack Paar.