Conan O'Brien announces microfracture surgery to stop NBC from moving his time slot

I'm a young fart that likes Leno(and Conan too).
But yeah when Leno retires I can see Jimmy Fallon getting the job(ugh, sounds horrid just saying that).

 

Absolutely agree.

 

It is sad, but

Fallon>Leno

 

Chelsea Handler lies about her age though. There's no f***ing way she's only 35.

 

Online is money is nowhere near TV money. It's about people watching on their couch in front of commercials. Why would you bring up DVR? If NBC is missing the numbers from people who are watching on DVR and skipping commercials, why would that matter to them?

I like Conan more than all the late night personalities but it's so annoying to see so many people b**** about him getting canned when most of them didn't watch. Go ahead and quote this and say you watched whomever but the ratings are what they are. His target audience just does not want to watch late night tv when it airs.

This isn't a whose funnier contest. It's who will draw more people to the tv at 10:30 and that is Leno.

 

But he didn't at first.

That's the point; circumstances that NBC created were highly unusual and didn't really give Conan much of a chance. In comparison, back then Leno's ratings were not good the first few months of his show. Bad enough that NBC was even considering making Letterman an offer after all.

Now imagine that happened *and* Carson announced he was going to stick around and host a show an hour earlier. Leno would have faded away.

Really, the ratings Conan were irrelevant in the sense that had they been higher NBC would have just had a tougher time pulling themselves out of the cluster**** they created.

Had Leno not tanked in his new slot (which in turn effected Conan's audience), had the affiliates not threatened to revolt, this whole thing would not have kicked off. Zucker himself has said as much.

Now, having said all that, I'm not sure much will change after the dust has settled. I imagine Leno will still have his draw (I mean, really, if his 'humor' didn't keep them away, what chance will this mess have? :grin: ) and I'm not really sure Conan will succeed in trying to work it out with another network.

Ah well. At least there's still Comedy Central.

 

People keep saying that Leno brings in the ratings. But do people tune in to watch Leno? Or his guests?

I've thought Leno was unfunny since I tried watching him 10 years ago. But the guy can book top guests like a beast. Conan may have a lot of appeal in the comedy crowd. But he really can't pull in the big names much. Only one that immediately comes to mind is Tom Hanks.

I personally like comedian guests, since they generally make better interviews. But they definitely don't bring in the casual crowds for ratings purposes.

 

i think it was $30 million, but yeah, point taken. no need to feel sorry for conan, but nbc really screwed his career over in a very long-term way.

in 2004 fox offered conan more money to go to their network and he stayed w/ nbc b/c they promised him the tonight show in 5 years (2009). that was his dream job and he essentially took a paycut and stunted his career growth by agreeing to stay on late night for another 5 years and wait out 'the chin'.

if he really was all about the money he would have bolted in 2004. but as he said over and over again, carson was his hero and the tonight show was his dream job.

 

you are seriously oversimplifying the issue.

 

No, but people who watch online and on DVR aren't watching the ads that people pay big bucks for. That's the problem. There are some ads online, sure, but at only a small fraction of the cost/frequency of the big-hitters on TV. That's where the money is.

That's the most fascinating aspect of all this for me - Conan's basically the victim of the ongoing struggle for media organizations to make money off the web. It is about the ratings - because while there are certainly other factors, as you said, the problem is that they simply don't generate anywhere near enough revenue. I completely agree that Conan has more of a fanbase than his ratings would suggest (in relation to Leno). But the moral of the story, at least for me: if you want your guy to survive, you need to watch in the format that drives money. That's live TV.

 

I don;t really know anyone that watches those shows for the guests. In fact, that is usually when I stop watching a late night show unless it is someone particularly funny.

 

Yeah, but us watching doesn't really matter because nobody is counting us. It's that select group of Nielsen families that matter and there's like only 35K of them.

That's why there should be some kind of opt in way to allow your provider to track what you watch. No different really than websites registering every hit.

 

Right, but I'm just speaking about general trends here, not any one of us in particular. People need to realize - and it starts with the Nielsen families, definitely - that if you want to support an entertainer, the traditional media outlets (live TV, print, etc.) are still the moneymakers for them, even in the Web era.

 

stop bumping this thread.

 

This thing may never die. Get used to it.

 

why?

don't post in it if you care so much

 

thread bump.

 

Long Live the thread. Or at least keep bumping it till Conan gets a new show. If he doesn't get another show then we will send the thread out to sea in a flaming ship, sending it to Valhalla. :grin:

 

lolrookie

 

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LtWapXyMbn4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LtWapXyMbn4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>