Conan Leaving Would be Good for NBC

[erpowers]

Today it was announced by the Conan O' Brien camp that O' Brien would not go along with the shift of his show to the 12:05 time slot. It seems that now people are wondering if O' Brien will leave NBC for another network. If Conan O’ Brien were to leave NBC it would only benefit NBC. The problem with the shift of Jay Leno and Conan O’ Brien has been O’ Brien. Leno has mainly kept his audience from his previous show. Before Leno’s show was moved to primetime he averaged an audience of 5 million plus viewers. Now that his show is in primetime he still averages an audience of 5 million plus viewers. He may have lost a few viewers, but his loss is nothing compared to the lost for Conan O’ Brien. Maybe O’ Brien did not have a large audience before he moved to hosting the Tonight Show; however, once he moved to the Tonight Show he was not able to bring in the five million viewers that Leno had been able to bring. As far as I know the Tonight Show with Conan O’ Brien has averaged about less than 3 million viewers per night. That is a fairly big drop. Therefore, it would be in NBC’s benefit if O’ Brien chose to go to another network.

[Arugula Latte]

1. I wish Jay Leno would just go away forever. nt

[kayakjohnny]

2. Older people like Jay. Older people are dying off.

Younger people like Conan. Younger people will be around for a while.

Do the math.

[Mopar151]

3. How many cars does Conan own? n/t

[kayakjohnny]

4. I think it's 151 Mopars.

Ironically enough.

[Mopar151]

10. Actually, it's the microcars

And one-offs I like best.

http://www.myclassiccar.com/episode/13/10/

[rurallib]

5. I am older. I always thought Jay stunk (Stank?).

[Skittles]

6. ditto

[LiberalAndProud]

9. What's "older?"

I was a Carson fan. Leno ... not at all. Watched him maybe twice.

Conan is better, but yea, probably a generation gap or something.

[TommyO]

7. How many viewers of scripted dramas did NBC lose in that precious 10:00pm slot?

[MadBadger]

8. I dont think it would necessarily be good for NBC

I think having things go back to the way they were would be good.

[pokerfan]

11. While 5M might be fine numbers for a late night talk show

it's down right horrible for prime time.

Even worse, in what has already been dubbed "the Leno effect" – audiences lost by 10 p.m. often don't return for later programs – ratings for NBC's two, later talk shows with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon are also down and viewership for the 11 p.m. news programs at NBC affiliates from Miami to New York is off by nearly a third.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1105/p02s13-usgn.html

[crispini]

12. Part of the way you get audience is the lead in.

You seem to be arguing that Leno is doing fine because he has "kept" his audience, but in fact, his numbers are so bad in prime time that the affiliates were threatening to take him off because he was killing their local news broadcasts. Leno's numbers had to go UP for him to be successful. He wasn't.

NBC really shot themselves in the foot with this one. They should have stayed with Conan and dumped Leno, who is most definitely not getting any funnier. Of course, I'm actually a fan of Ferguson, so there you go.

[Orrex]

13. I'm just amazed that any of the decision-makers thought this was a good idea

It seems to me that anyone, even a hermit living in a cave, would have been able to say that moving Jay to 10:00PM would be a disaster.

If only NBC had people on the payroll whose job it is to research these things and make informed assessments about the likelihood of success or failure.

[Bucky]

16. I got the impression from reports last year they made the move w/o market research

I know people like to bash focus groups, but I'll bet if they'd spent half a million dollars on a bit of research first they'd have saved themselves hundreds of millions in lost revenue right along with the 10s of millions they'll spend buying off contracts for Conan's people.

To simply assume that Leno's dominance in the 11:30 viewer market would automatically translate to the 10:00 viewers. That's not just demographic differences (there probably aren't demographic differences). These are differences in consumer preferences in the kinds of shows they like to watch. This just underscores how TV stations view their audiences--not as customers, but as numbers of eyes the can sell to their real customers, the advertisers.

[bigwillq]

14. I'll still be watching Letterman

regardless of what happens on NBC.

[jakefrep]

15. Conan O'Brien is the reason I currently watch Letterman.

And I liked Leno more than Letterman.