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Heeere’s Jimmy!

TV’s worst-kept secret became official yesterday when NBC announced that longtime “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno is hanging up his microphone to make way for Jimmy Fallon.

“Congratulations, Jimmy,” Leno said in a statement issued by the network. “I hope you’re as lucky as me and hold onto the job until you’re the old guy. If you need me, I’ll be at the garage.”

Fallon, who will leave his “Late Night” gig, one-upped Leno with a hammy statement of his own:

“I’m really excited to host a show that starts today instead of tomorrow,” Fallon said, a reference to his current show’s 12:35 a.m. start time.

The Peacock Network also confirmed rumors that “The Tonight Show” is leaving Burbank and returning to its original New York home.

Running the show will be “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” guru Lorne Michaels, who wanted to keep late-night competitor Jimmy Kimmel, on ABC, at bay.

Sources said Michaels twisted arms in New York to get the ball rolling when he told NBC, “How much of a head start do you want to give Kimmel?”

Except for a brief botched hiatus in 2009, Leno, 62, has hosted “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” since taking over the reins from the legendary Johnny Carson in 1992.

COLUMN: LENO CAN KEEP THAT AMAZING CHIN UP

The announcement came days after Fallon, 38, and Leno teamed up for a “We’re OK” skit that aired in the minutes between their respective shows.

In the sketch, the late-night hosts talked about all the speculation in a phone call, and sang about their plight to a “West Side Story” tune.

“Tonight, tonight, who’s going to host ‘Tonight’? Is it going to be Jimmy or Jay?” they crooned from their respective dressing rooms.

“The line between the two shows is going to start to blur,” said one executive.

The announcement, of course, made great monologue fodder for rival funnyman David Letterman.

“How many of you folks earlier today saw the white smoke coming out of the chimney at NBC? Anybody see that?” said CBS’s Letterman, who famously lost the gig to Leno when Carson retired.

“I got a call from my mom today. She says, ‘Well, David, I see you didn’t get “The Tonight Show” again.’ ”

NBC said the change will take place in spring 2014.

Steve Burke, chief executive officer of NBC Universal, said the network is making the move while Leno is still at the top of the ratings, just as when Leno replaced Carson in 1992.

“Jimmy Fallon is a unique talent and this is his time,” Burke said.

Sources said NBC will pay Leno only what he’s owed for the rest of his contract, which ends in September 2014.

Burke brokered the deal himself over the weekend because the network suits had butchered it so badly, sources said.

NBC made no announcement on who would replace Fallon in the “Late Night” slot, although Seth Meyers of “Saturday Night Live” is considered a strong candidate.

Leno, of course, has been through all this before. He was famously moved to a prime-time slot in 2009, but his show failed more miserably than a bad monologue.

Quirky comic Conan O’Brien was moved into the “Tonight Show” chair, but was bounced after only seven months when network executives pulled the plug on the prime-time show and restored Leno to his late-night throne. O’Brien left the network.

The network awkwardly ignored O’Brien’s stint in its press release about the Fallon transition, instead claiming that Leno has hosted the show since 1992.

The late-night comedy development is serious business for New York.

“ ‘The Tonight Show’ will bring even more jobs and economic activity to our city, and we couldn’t be happier that one of New York’s own is bringing the show back to where it started, and where it belongs,” said Mayor Bloomberg.

leonard.greene@nypost.com