Last night's early metered market numbers for The Tonight Show slipped to a 4.3 household rating. For those of you keeping score at home, that's down from 7.1 for the Monday night premiere and a 5.0 rating Tuesday night. The waning ratings are hardly a surprise, and it was still enough to best the late night competition from The Late Show with David Letterman (2.8) and Nightline (2.1) / Jimmy Kimmel Live (1.2).
Ultimately Conan's ratings will begin to level off. The question is, where?
I think Conan’s going to do just fine. His initial drop is to be expected because people who don’t normally watch are staying up to check him out. When he levels out I have no doubt his numbers will be very competative with Letterman and Co…
Hope the numbers remain at that level. 4.3 is good, but anything lower than 4 would be a disappointment
Conan is just not funny. His shtick is stupid and he should go back to being a wirter for the simpsons where he belongs. NBD has made a BIG mistake and I predict they will dump Conan and bring Jay back.
Dennis, while the age demos mean far more (we just haven’t seen them for the Conan Tonight Shows yet), the last quarter’s average for the Leno Tonight show was a 3.9 metered market rating. I’d say falling below that *this week* with all the promotion would be disappointing, but if Conan settled in at the same level as Jay had when he left I doubt NBC would be unhappy.
I expected the rating to continue to drop, no warning signs to me. The beginning of last night’s show was solid, but the guests weren’t that good. Monday and Tuesday had better guests.
As long as he stays ahead of Letterman I’m sure NBC will be happy for now…
Of course next week will be the true test!
You’re all far more sanguine about his prospects than I am. How do those numbers break down? The core “Late Show” audience just won’t watch Letterman or Kimmel, and those are the ones he has to win over – if they’ve already tuned out, he’s in trouble. The rest are rubberneckers & he can’t hope to hold onto even 1/2 of them.
Richard, your prediction couldn’t be more wrong. Bring Jay back? Yeah, don’t see that happening. Care to put some money on it? I’ll even give you 10 years for it to happen.
It’s sad you don’t have a sense of humour, as clearly Conan has his share of fans who do think he’s funny.
i missed the last two shows. i hope triumph was not on.
Yikes, 3 days in and he’s already nearing Jay’s NORMAL ratings? That can’t be good, no? Granted, his numbers aren’t going to drop 30% everyday but still, hopefully he has a core audience which will stick around night after night.
While *I* personally find him funny, after watching Monday and Tuesday’s shows, I can see how a LOT of normal Jay Leno viewers would be turned off by Conan’s show. Jay’s humour, for better or worse, seemed to have a much wider appeal. Conan’s show is going to need to broaden their comedic horizons. That twitter bit he did on Tuesday, for example – it was cute, but it wasn’t really LOL funny. I doubt a lot of people sat LOLing their bums off either.
See, here’s the thing, the first two shows were big “blowaway” shows, last night’s episode was what I would consider the first normal show he’s done (3 guest format, silly skits, normal monologue). I honestly think last night’s show was the best yet. I don’t want to say I’m certain his ratings will be competitive with what Leno was doing. I think he’ll fare fine though and ultimately, and will almost definitely top Letterman consistently.
I’m wondering how long its going to take for him to bring back The Masterbating Bear. lol.
Kevin, I agree, last night’s show was by far the best…it seemed like “Late-Night” for the first time, and let’s be honest, after doing this for almost 20 years Conan isn’t going to change who he is now!
Zach, I think it’s going to take awhile for the Masterbating Bear to come back….7-8 months at least
mom hasn’t quoted me a Conan joke. never a good sign
Overheard NBC Execs discussing Conan’s Tonight Show replacing Leno ” Oh My God, what the HELL were we thinking?”
I agree with Richard, Conan is just not funny! Jimmy Fallon has bombed too! Very sad when Dave is the funniest night talk host…
Watch for the Leno’s return to where he belongs…
I’ve loved all of Conan’s shows so far, but that Julia Dreyfus skit was a little uncomfortable, it was funny but it came off kind of odd and might have made her look bad in a weird way to the public. I kind of hope they don’t plan to have their main guests involved with skits every night. They can backfire pretty quick like Julia’s almost did last night. But Conan is still so much more funnier than Jay and it’s been a great change for me.
“Overheard NBC Execs discussing Conan’s Tonight Show replacing Leno ” Oh My God, what the HELL were we thinking?”
After the 3rd night??? Yeah whatever.
I bet they were thinking the same thing after Jay took over for Carson.
No way I’m watching tonight and i have a Nielsen box so you make that a 2.0, hes manic the last thing you want to relax to going to bed, it obvious that NBC doesn’t really care in fact his ratings nearly had him almost booted in 2007
He doesn’t get it..its his self absorbed personality, he MUST BE FUNNY, he must tell himself that, the sign of a true comedian or entertainer is timing and delivery with a dri-wit and J wins both ways with a new show, new time and there done with Conan, he will get one 1/12 of the original salary agreement as a severance and NBC will get a new set they prop somebody else in, which there probably looking right now for….actually he was used, theres a rude awakening for allot of Hollywood, Tom Hanks movie was a bomb..they are the last to see it comming
I’m getting really sick of you guys hating on Conan and not giving him a chance. Conan is my all-time favorite host but I’m not about to write crap about other hosts. They’re all funny in their own way. And I know Jimmy Fallon is still awkward but I think it’ll take a few years for that to go away and for him to know what works and what doesn’t. ALL hosts go through a period of time where they’re all awkward.
Leno is still under contract to NBC. That’s a great insurance policy if Conan’s numbers continue to plummet. Look for Jay to be back on the Tonight Show by next year if the trend continues. The buzz on the Conan’s show is dreadful.