NBC has announced that it will be using Internet video as a sort of minor league training grown for late-night television.

It’s announced that Jimmy Fallon will be the Late Night replacement for Conan O’Brien when Mr. O’Brien takes over the Tonight show next year.

Lorne Michaels, Executive Producer for Late Night said that he wants Mr. Fallon to work out as many of the rough spots in his presentation as possible in online performances.

“I expect that we’ll do something like five or 10 minutes,” Mr. Michaels said. “I’m going to post them at 12:30 every night, so people will begin to look for Jimmy at that time.”

Michaels hopes to avoid the sort of transition that NBC had with O’Brien, who struggled for months to find his style after taking on the Late Night desk after David Letterman.

“Conan needed time to find his show,” Mr. Michaels said. “I think this will help Jimmy to do that.”

Networks are likely to try this more and more. Video podcasters have demonstrated how inexpensively you can create short-form video for the web, and the networks have established track records, which should make their Internet videos easier to market to advertisers.