Controversy is usually good for ratings, and whether it was "Team Conan" turning out or not, Conan O'Brien's The Tonight Show crushed David Letterman's Late Show again on Wednesday night.
In Late-Night Local People Meters Wednesday night:
Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show averaged a 1.8 rating in 18-49 in local people meters, and out-delivered CBS's Late Show 1.0 rating in Nielsen's 25 local markets with people meters.
At 12:35 a.m., Jimmy Fallon 0.9 rating in 18-49 in local people meters topped CBS's Late Late Show 0.6 rating
Team Conan FTW!
Conan is fun to watch atm, but fallon topping Craig? I guess 10 x the budget can buy a couple ratings points.
Now Conan’s late night show is beating Leno’s prime time show.
This was a great move for NBC for both buisness and controversal purposes. It was a smart buisness move for obvoius reasons. As for controversal reasons not only do they get to make better ratings moving The Jay Leno Show back to late-night, but they get great raings on Connan as well. Its about time NBC starts thinking big.
Damn, Ferguson falls to Fallon? That’s a damn shame.
Of course Conan is beating Lettermen right now. People want to tune in and see some controversial comments from Conan. You know, his fans want to hear about what a piece of S… NBC is.
It will die down.
For the record, though, I think Conan really is / was better at late night.
Conan also beat Jay’s 1.6 at 10.
Team Conan is stepping up to the plate big time while Jay looks over and sees that he bench is empty. Must be humiliating for Jay to see practically no one has come to his defence and now he’s losing to an inferior timeslot.
My question is if this keeps up until the Vancouver Olympics, does it sway NBC’s decision at all or will they just try to get through another huge embarassment as best they can?
Conan’s next week will be last on Tonight Show.
Plus, i’d still like to know where was team Conan when it counted? It’s probably a look-in scandal audience, mostly.
Leno could probably care less that no one is coming to his defense. All he wants is the Tonight Show back, screw the PR wars
And good for Conan! At least he gets to leave the Tonight Show on a somewhat high note. This can’t be too impressive to NBC. What, are they going to manufacture a tragedy every other week to keep Conan afloat? If Conan were to retain the Tonight Show, how many of these people just watching now would stick around? Conan had momentum and press going into his first week and look where he ended up.
I guess this just proves that Jay Leno was NOT undercutting Conan’s audience, or Leno was harming Conan as a lead-in, etc. etc. etc.
People just found no reason to tune into the overrated Conan…until now.
What would Leno’s numbers be if he was at 11:35, and Conan were at 10?
I’m guessing about the same….
Well said Jeff…Definitely a crap way that NBC are treating O’Brien but at the same time the fault lies with Zucker – Jay does nt control NBC or GE or even Comcast; the book lies at Zuckers door for the mess that this has created. I wonder how much Comcast is regreting their decision to buy into NBCU now??? Personally I think in the long term that Conan is a better bet for the Tonight Show at 11.35 even though I don’t particularly like his sense of humor. They could solve the problem of what to do with Jay by giving him a US version of Top Gear. He could do his monolgue at the start of the show. The rest of the show usually includes a mixture of taped parts along with a live audience while he and whomever he invites on reviews different cars. Can’t understand why they are nt revisting this as an option – then again we are talking about the same guys who ousted Jay from his position as No.1 talk show host.
Is Conan “quitting” becoming his show’s Hugh Grant moment?
In other news, I hear Conan is replacing Simon Cowell on Idol next season….
Go Conan! I’m definitely team Conan, Jay is pushing too many people around. Its unfair. Has anyone seen that picture that was drawn by an artist that says, “I’m with COCO” ??
” Anonymous says:
January 14, 2010 at 9:23 am
I guess this just proves that Jay Leno was NOT undercutting Conan’s audience, or Leno was harming Conan as a lead-in, etc. etc. etc.”
Wow, you have no clue what you’re talking about.
Anonymous: “I guess this just proves that Jay Leno was NOT undercutting Conan’s audience, or Leno was harming Conan as a lead-in, etc. etc. etc.
People just found no reason to tune into the overrated Conan…until now.”
The ratings graph on the Where Was Team Conan Before? post clearly showed that Conan was consistently beating Letterman UNTIL Leno’s show debuted in the fall. If you still think Leno had no effect on Conan’s ratings, you’re deluding yourself.
Hopefully this audience will follow Conan to Fox. It looks like his supporters are finally awake, so I see big things in store for Conan.
I think letterman started beating conan originally because of the sex controversy, not neccessarily the Leno Show starting.
Like I said before… scandal can’t hurt NBC at this point.