We all know that Conan O’Brien has been up in arms over the the announcement that NBC was planning to move The Tonight Show to the 12:05 a.m. time slot. The reason for this move was to place The Jay Leno Show directly after the news. The Jay Leno Show has consistently pulled in more viewers than Conan, but the time slot change would be a travesty.
I have always heard nothing does better for ratings than a good old scandal. Earlier this week, Conan announced that he had plans to leave the show if the time slot was changed. Apparently this did not sit well with many viewers, because Tuesday night the ratings ski rocketed.
The Nielsen data showed a raise of about 42% of viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, from Monday to Tuesday. David Letterman is the ratings leader for that time slot. He is also making jokes about this situation says, “A couple of minutes ago, Conan O’Brien, who was the host of The Tonight Show over there at NBC, announced that he would not follow Jay Leno at 12:05. Yeah, so you know what this means — that’s right, I knocked off another competitor.”
The Tonight Show has aired directly after the news since its inception. Changing it now is a total break in tradition. While The Jay Leno Show does seem to get higher ratings, it would still not be the same. If The Tonight Show airs at 12:05 a.m., doesn’t that technically make it the morning show? I feel for Conan. He is still haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. He takes over the show from Jay Leno, then Leno creates another talk show that threatens to move Conan’s new show.
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