In the three weeks that Jay Leno's Tonight Show overlapped with Conan's on a calendar week basis (2010 vs. 2009) he's finished behind Conan.
When might Jay overtake Conan's past ratings? if ever?
If Jay holds at the 0.9 adults 18-49 rating he scored last week, he'd finish below Conan's ratings for the entire summer.
The folks dwelling on Leno beating Letterman (which he did again last week) miss the point that beating the competition is important only in press releases (and to sites like ours that focus on the horserace) not to the network's business.
What matters to NBC are a show's absolute ratings (and their trend) which correlate to its advertising potential. On that basis, NBC cares about the Tonight Show's current ratings and their trend (which is down vs. last year), not to Letterman's current ratings.
CBS, of course, cares about Letterman's ratings trend. On that basis, the fact that Dave had identical ratings to last summer for the last two weeks is pretty good in the broadcast television world where "flat is the new up".
In related news, ‘The Jay Leno Show’ Cancellation Payoff Is Complete.
The first chart shows the Leno/Conan ratings in the same sequential week of their run.
Conan/Letterman (2009-10) week 1 ended 6/5/09. Leno/Letterman (2010-) week 1 ended 3/5/10. The Conan/Letterman(2009-10) ratings do not include the final week the Tonight Show was in repeats prior to the Winter Olympics.
The second chart aligns the ratings weeks for the shows to their calendar weeks.
HAHAHA…will Jay's numbers ever top Coco's?? Probably not!! HAHA…..What's funny to me is that NBC hasn't stated that the Tonight Show has been losing money!!! They tried to put that on Coco because of the ratings yet they haven't mentioned anything to Jay's ratings!!
While the title is totally true (Leno is ruined due to the fiasco), it's very misleading. The first three weeks of Conan's show were ratings killers, scoring a 2.3, 1.5 and 1.3. There really wasn't any legitimate shot of Leno passing him those weeks.
That being said, go CoCo.
I agree 100%; NBC made so many mistakes in the handling this Tonight Show change, not to mention the studio they built which still remains empty pretty much at least the last time I was there. I am glad TBS is advertising with pride of Conan's new show coming this fall.
Let's see: Oh yes, NBC blew it and Jay tarnished his reputation as a “good guy” when he “accepted” the new “offer” of the “Tonight Show.” The fact that Kevin Eubanks and the ENTIRE band left “to pursue other interests” says a lot. People have seen Jay for what he really is. But man, he sure can still tell “jokes.”
Jay became the 30 million dollar per year sacrificial lamb to NBC's Publicity Department.
Coco will probably re-emerge with huge numbers (for cable) this fall and in the process make a laughingstock out of NBC and Jay Leno. What is strange to me is how Jay threw away all of his hard work on one horrible, nasty, mean decision especially when ABC was chomping at the bit to sign him. Chances are he would have moved his audience to a new network and continued dominating. Now people do not buy his “nice ness.”
I don't know. The “Big Box” theory of late night network television seems to be dwindling. If I were a network executive I would seriously be thinking about how much it is costing me to deliver the kinds of demos that Dave and Jay are delivering versus their competition on cable. 0.9 at 30 million dollars plus per year sounds like an awful lot of dough versus what John Stewart and his likes are being paid on cable for roughly the same demo rating. 0.7 vs 0.9 and he is on earlier. Am I speaking out of pocket here? LOL…
Sorry to continue with this diatribe but how much of this can be attributed to the overall erosion of broadcast television audiences? In all fairness are Dave and Jay still doing extremely well considering the amount of competition?
Certainly some can be attributed to the general shift from broadcast to cable, but Dave's audiences have not gone down since last summer in the two most recent weeks.
And your'e right that the gap between Dave, Jay and the late night Comedy Central shows has narrowed substantially in the last few years.
More importantly than that is the fact the NBC backed this man till the bitter end and is loosing more money then Coco, if NBC actually lost money in the first place, and yet applaud his “success” Even the affiliates that were against Coco are happy…though granted that was a bit different being that Jay was on at 10pm.
Ah, but what *follows* the local affiliates late newscasts is far less important to them than what *precedes* them.
Which is why I stated that the situation is different. I get why the affiliates were complaining…Jay brought down the house with his chin…nuff said!
I blame the affiliates they were pissing vinegar pressuring NBC to do something. NBC total joke. Zucker should have been fired immediately after that. No one had the balls. For ruining both Jay and Conan. People hate Jay people hate Conan. Why the hell do we go on and on about these millionaires. And the media will be bleeding it to death pissing on every little story.
Well NBC tried to mess with its late night lineup and it backfired and now you're going to start seeing people either staying CBS or migrating over to TBS to watch Conan and Lopez.
I think it helps Stewart that he can use the (bleeped) f-word repeatedly on his show and get away with it, whereas if Leno or Letterman did the network would be fined millions. In other words, Stewart can get away with a lot more on cable than anybody can on broadcast.
Which is an excellent reason for getting rid of the FCC. Then we could watch True Blood sex on broadcast! Works for me! Death to prudes!
Check out the rest of the graph; the numbers Jay is pulling are what Conan was pulling in his worst weeks; on average, Conan was a ratings point or two above this.
As long as the word is bleeped, there is no fine. There are guests who use it on broadcast late night shows without harm. And there are shows like Arrested Development which have bleeps scripted into the show. If there were fines for bleeps, you can bet your ass that wouldn't be happening.
The problem with Jay was it was going to cost NBC way more money to let him go after the prime time disaster than to keep him. Whichever executive greenlit that contract should have been fired. Why would you hand all of the power to the “talent?”
So, unless there is a really good escape clause (doubtful), NBC is stuck with him, ratings or not.
But remember, according to Jay, it was never about the money.
I think the issue is how many f-words. Stewart can use it a half dozen times in one paragraph. Guests on broadcast talk shows and scripted shows maybe can use it once in a while, but if there was more than that, I think you'd see fines levied. I don't know the official FCC policy on that. I DO know that we're never seeing True Blood on broadcast.
1. I hope my Internet is working again when I get home so I can find 3
scenes in particular from AD to refute that bleeps are fined.
2. You're not going to see True Blood on basic cable either, which
self regulates, so I'm not sure what you're complaining about.