look for the "Conan won the demo" press release from NBC anytime now...
via CBS release:
- "LATE SHOW" REPEATS BEAT "Tonight Show" ORIGINALS!
"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" Tops "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" for the Fourth Consecutive Week
Rebroadcasts of LATE SHOW with DAVID LETTERMAN delivered a larger audience than first-run broadcasts of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien," according to Nielsen live plus same day ratings for the week ending Aug. 7.
LATE SHOW delivered a 2.1/06 in households with an average of 2.95m viewers beating first-run "The Tonight Show" in households (vs. 2.0/05, +5%) and viewers (vs. 2.94m).
This marks LATE SHOW's fifth consecutive weekly win in viewers over "The Tonight Show."
THE LATE LATE SHOW with CRAIG FERGUSON posted a 1.1/04 in households with 1.41m viewers. THE LATE LATE SHOW beat "Late Night" in households (vs. 1.0/04, +10%) and viewers (vs. 1.39m, +1%) for the fourth consecutive week.
Haha he beat Conan only by .01m, lucky. Well I can’t wait until Dave is back next week, I’ve been watching the full episodes of Conan these past two weeks instead of flipping back and forth between the two like I usually do and I can say Conan’s show is nowhere near as funny as Late Night was. It’s such a shame.
Even though the margin is insignificant, the fact that repeats tied with originals (at least in total viewers) is very embarrassing for NBC…I wonder what the demos look like.
I don’t know how much NBC can crow about a “demos win” in a week where they aired opposite repeats.
This should be prime time for Conan. In the fall, he’s going to be the 2.5hr/3rd hour block of long talk on NBC (Jay at 10, Nightly News, then Conan)
What this really sets up is that NBC is likely to get crushed.
Leno may have his old job back sooner than anyone thought. The only smart thing NBC did was keep him under contract in the event Conan failed.
I’ve found myself watching Dave’s reruns this past week. I guess I should take the time to try watching Conan once, but Dave really is funny and is getting funnier by the night. I found myself watching things in the reruns that I must have missed first time I was watching.
GO DAVE!!!!!
Conan is improving, but not by much. But still, GO CONAN!!!
These were reruns, but it seems clear that adding to Conan and NBC’s problems is the fact that Dave perceives the opportunity he’s been given and is trying again. It’s been so long since Dave’s been into it, you could almost forget that when he’s trying, he has no peer as a talk-show host in TV history besides Johnny Carson.
And the situation will have to get worse when NBC starts doing a 10 p.m. talk show in the fall. The question is more like, how long will NBC give it before they at least make style changes to Conan’s show? November? Can they afford to wait until January?
Conan could only get a 2.0 against re-runs? Leno in his last year on the Tonight Show was averaging a 4.8. Conan has lost 60 percent of Leno’s audience. Wow, talk about an unmitigated disaster. People have given Conan a chance for the past two months and decided they don’t like him. What’s going to happen when Leno comes back next month? Conan’s going down to a 1.0? a 0.5? Do I hear… Scratch?
Panic at 30 Rock, no doubt. Sheer, utter panic.
If 10 million viewers watched a Letterman rerun and 1 18 year old watched a Conan original, NBC would rush out a press release “Conan Wins Every Key Demo!!!!”
And don’t forget tonight’s the repeat with Paul McCartney!! That should add even more viewers for this week’s average. If next week the numbers are same or similar, I can just imagine how embarrassing this must be for NBC. I kinda feel bad for them.
“Expert Analyst”, Conan got a 2.0 during the Summer. Numbers are a lot lower during the Summer. That’s not to say Conan’s doing nearly as well as Leno, but it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.
I really want Conan to do good!!
I don’t really get how people can statements indicating there’s a chance Conan will be withdrawn from The Tonight Show. Letterman was always beaten by Leno and he hasn’t gone anywhere. Where’s the logic that a network would completely reverse the insanely expensive; move of the entire Late Night crew to L.A., set building, marketing campaign, etc, due to a relatively small loss in viewership in that time slot in the first 6-12 months of the show’s airing?
I think people need to understand the logistics of the industry a little better before making wild assertions like that.
I am really disappointed in Conan since he took over for Jay. I never missed Jay Leno, now I can’t even stand two minutes of Conan. What the heck was NBC thinking? I don’t think Conan is funny at all, I think he is really rather disgusting and his antics are annoying. He doesn’t seem to respect his guests at all. That’s just my opinon. But after watching late night TV for 35 years and being loyal to NBC, I think they really screwed up big this time. I can’t wait for Jay to come back.
Johnny, I think that the loss in viewers is more than relatively small, especially considering that this move was by no means necessary and that their long-term ratings stability and victories in the slot, one of NBC’s few bright spots, have vanished in a little over two months. I agree that it’s a little early to talk about the demise of Tonight with Conan, but at some point, NBC will realize that they’ll have to eat their investments from the marketing campaign, set building, etc, in order to regain what they had. That’s the difference between Dave and Conan: Dave improved upon his predecessor. Conan dropped significantly from first place, and regardless of the spin that he’s winning in the 18-49 demographic against repeats, this is a serious issue.
Always enjoy Craig. I simply cannot watch Conan – can’t stand the way he continually claps his hands during his monologue. Maybe I am not the only one that this bugs to distraction??
Thanks SueMaple, Conan claps his hands after every joke. STOP IT!!! Can his producer not see this? I bet he claps his hands 50 times during his monologue. Its almost like he’s begging the audience to clap for him!!! He is not funny at ALL!! Will be done before 2009 is over!!!
What in the world was NBC thinking when they agreed to do the Leno show before the news, then Conan??? I thought it was crazy then and its proved to be. Conan’s comedy is too cheesey and immature for that time of demographic. Having a show that features all guy guests on his show and then having that obnoxious voice (which is that of the geeky writer) scream “ITS A LATE NIGHT SAUSAGE FEST,” is not something that “after the news,” demographic appreciates. Conan would be much funnier if he would just be himself as opposed to doing cheesey laughs. After Conan you have Jimmy Fallon, which was a terrible, awful idea. I don’t know whose idea it was to put this train wreck on the tracks but it derailed before it got on the tracks.
I don’t really get how people can statements indicating there’s a chance Conan will be withdrawn from The Tonight Show. Letterman was always beaten by Leno and he hasn’t gone anywhere.”
Not that I agree that NBC will take The Tonight Show away from Conan, but those are two different situations. Letterman came to CBS, which could not get a late night program to do even modestly well, and cut into The Tonight Show’s dominance big time. Even if he wasn’t winning, it was a victory for CBS because they had not only taken away NBC’s 12:30 superstar, but had also created a show that could compete with The Tonight Show (before Letterman got the Late Show, The Tonight Show would absolutely crush any competing program).
Conan, however, is taking over a show which was #1 in its time slot for almost fourteen years straight, and the guy he took it from is still contracted to NBC. So the idea many people have is that since Conan’s move to The Tonight Show has yielded a negative result (unlike CBS’ acquisition of Letterman), and since Jay is still at NBC, NBC can move Jay beck to The Tonight Show when they want. This idea is further fueled by little things like the way NBC left The Tonight Show’s studio (that has belonged to The Tonight Show since Johnny Carson was host) to Jay Leno instead of remodeling it for Conan.
“Where’s the logic that a network would completely reverse the insanely expensive; move of the entire Late Night crew to L.A., set building, marketing campaign, etc,”
As expensive as that move may have seemed, it’s really pretty inexpensive for a big network like NBC. If they really wanted to boot Conan, they could use his new studio for another show. The only thing that COULD be expensive about booting Conan is that I’m sure Conan made sure there was a clause in his contract wherein they’d have to pay him a large sum of money if he did not get The Tonight Show.
“due to a relatively small loss in viewership in that time slot in the first 6-12 months of the show’s airing?”
It’s a little more than “relatively small”, although he IS still winning the demos, so there’s that.
But NBC still won’t give The Tonight Show back to Leno. It’d be a PR nightmare, first of all. They’d still have to pay Conan’s (likely multimillion dollar) contract for him to host Late Night again, or even to host nothing at all if they want to keep Fallon. Plus Conan’s an investment. Sure he’s losing now, but Letterman’s likely retiring in 2012, and that’s when Conan will become the incumbent, giving him the advantage of audience familiarity.
Those who think NBC can backtrack are way wrong. There are too many things that prevent it, including the fact it would equal 5 hours a week of unplanned programming at the 10PM(EST) time slot that Jay will now occupy.. move him anywhere, and suddenly NBC has a lot of expensive content to come up with in a hurry.
Won’t happen. They made their bed and get to lie in it. And, while people kept thinking “Dave will retire in 2012″, if the man starts winning repeatedly, it may be a bit too fun to quit. There were rumors in the 80s for years about Carson’s retirement.. different potential hosts got guest shots (Joan Rivers, Gary Shandling, Brenner, etc.)
In fact, I keep waiting for Dave to trot that out as a real throw back: “guest host”