In an article that’s mostly about the current advertising situation in late night TV (the anecdotal advertising info I tend to completely discount, public advertising information like this is hard draw conclusions from), comes some season to date comparisons for NBC’s late night ratings (which we don’t get from our regular sources):
O’Brien is down 22% among 18-49 viewers for the first four weeks of the season; “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” is down 16% in 18-49 viewers
That’s a big problem for NBC. A very big problem. Summer results I was willing to overlook, but the early fall trend spells disaster for NBC.
I continue to maintain that the problem with the Tonight Show ratings isn’t that Jay Leno’s at 10pm, it’s that he’s not at 11:30pm. Conan has allowed Letterman to completely close the gap with the Tonight Show and while anything can happen in the future, the current situation after 11:30 is a bad one for NBC.
I agree with you. Leno isn’t the problem with Conan’s “Tonight.” Conan was struggling even before Jay’s show premiered.
Yikes.
I wonder, at this point, is it even a viable option to put Leno back at 11:35 and let Conan walk?
Regardless, I’m sure NBC will be patient – although the pace at which NBC plunged at 11:35pm is quite jaw-dropping….late night viewing patterns usually move at a glacial pace.
The Tonight Show doesn’t have a young hip look and stlye to it anymore. Starting off with the “Big Band Sound” doesn’t give way to a younger demographic which is what the advertisers are wanting. The Core viewers are older and have alreaady been bored with Leno earlier, fell asleep during the late news and are ready to head off to bed when Conan gets ready to perform.
Anon, I agree that it’s highly unlikely that NBC makes any changes this season, but I think its inaction is more do to limited alternatives than “patience”
They could attempt to clone Carson.
Is it unreasonable to say that the older people in the house control the remote? I would suggest sometimes you need the older demo to get at the young viewer. There’s too much narrowing in today. Carson appealed to young and old. How about we throw some names out of possible hosts with broader appeal?
I can’t think of someone for the Tonight Show right now, but here’s a different example.
Let’s stop going to obnoxious Ryan Seacrest to host event shows. Mario Lopez has much broader appeal. (watch out Mario. Ryan may do a Tanya Harding on you. You’re definitely a threat).
Seth MacFarlane for Tonight Show.
So, in effect, if NBC believed it would rake in more profit by airing Leno at 10 instead of scripted series, they have probably raked in no such thing once you factor in the loss they’re incurring with both Conan and Fallon. The Leno move, then, has turned into a no-win situation. Oh, well, back to the scripted series drawing board, I guess.
I do think the Leno thing has had SOME effect. It has to make a difference when your lead in has very low ratings/viewers. I know that’s not the ONLY problem though. I love Conan though and I hope they can work it out so he can stay on the show.
Remember years ago when Letterman complained to CBS about the weak 11 p.m. prime time shows? That isn’t the case for CBS now. But having strong 11 p.m. shows didn’t help Letterman much. NBC’s decisions and Sarah Palin helped Letterman.
Catherine – Dave and his former interns also helped his ratings! Nothing like a good scandal, just ask Leno following his interview with Hugh Grant over 10 years ago.
I watch Conan every night. Love the show!
I watch Leno nearly every night at 10pm. To me, it feels like it’s 11:35, and I’m asleep by 10:30.
Bad for ratings, but I’m very well rested!
I love Conan and always have, we grew up watching him.
He doesn’t seem happy where he is and I think that has a lot to do with it, I think he really misses NY and it’s reflected on the show. I hope you gets out of his funk, I’m still a loyal viewer regardless.
I haven’t watched the new Tonight Show since Conan’s first week; it’s just a train wreck. And I haven’t watched Fallon since the first show (yes, I didn’t give it a chance– you have to give your in-laws a chance, you have to give your daughter’s skeazy boyfriend a chance, I don’t have to give late night TV a chance). It’s turned me into a hardcore Craig Ferguson watcher (he’s surprisingly awesome, I had no idea).
I hope NBC is making many bajillions of dollars from this new arrangement, because otherwise, it still looks like one of the great bonehead moves in TV.
NBC is in huge trouble.
NBC only has its Today Show and Nightly to point to as winners (Sunday night football as well, but that would do fine on any network and I haven’t calculated the rights cost versus revenue stream).
NBC has now officially lost the ‘late night leader’ status and it lost the primetime competitor status long ago.
Meredith, Matt and Brian must all feel pretty comfy. If I were them, I’d ask for more $. Maybe they don’t deserve it but NBC can’t risk even the most minor of changes to those shows.
Conan is a bad interviewer, he seems to make people more nervous than at ease. Also he isn’t funny. I don’t like Dave so I stay up and watch Craig Ferguson. My husband and even my Mom (note wide age difference of 27 years apart) both do not like Conan – which is not from my influence but their own take on his show. Husband didn’t know about Craig Ferguson until I started watching and now he is hooked. So in our house it’s Leno at 10 and Ferguson for late night.
Having Leno on at 10 doesn’t affect Conan since his ratings were already down before Leno started. Now, I’m not sure which situation is worse for NBC, the current one, or letting Leno go and then showing up on ABC. I think Leno on ABC would have been worse and would easily have destroyed The Tonight Show.
Have to admit that I am not much of a Late Night viewer. It’s when I tend to catch up on DVR, or watch sports or a late night DVD if I cannot sleep. But I have been DVRing Craig Ferguson and have become addicted to him, which is a coincidence since he’s a reformed addict himself.
Not sure if he’d work with the earlier audiences, but it’s amazing how funny he can be night after night. Like to see someone give him a shot earlier in the evening, because how much worse can you do right now over at NBC?
When you compare what Ferguson is doing to what Conan is now doing (as opposed to what Conan used to at 12:30), it seems pretty apparent that NBC has stuck a muzzle on Conan in order to try and appeal to everyone, which never, ever works. Jay’s viewers obviously don’t like Conan, and Conan’s old viewers are obviously disappointed in the New Conan.
When you pick a host, you have to let them do what they do, then see if people watch. If they don’t, then you replace him. Dumbing the host down, however, never seems to work. If they wanted another Jay, then they should have hired another Jay. Asking Conan to be Jay was crazy from the start.
Oh, but I forgot, this is NBC we are talking about—the home of crazy and futile.
By the way, I did watch Fallon for only the second time the night Monty Python was on, and I must say I was staggered by how totally inept Fallon was. Not funny, and completely unable to conduct anything resembling an interview. It was painful to watch. No wonder he failing hard. NBC is probably looking for someone to replace him even as I type this.
The three shows are so overtly political they make NBC look like the democrat party’s entertainment arm. leno and Conan were always obvious in their preferences but this season Conan and Fallon seem to revel in their disdain for “misaligned” people in a way that must turn off even apolitical people. Jay appeared to keep a sense or relative fairness but his show is anything but “big tent” anymore. He had Rush Limbaugh on… and after that it’s been leftist after leftist.
Who enjoys politics before going to bed? Soon they’ll only have msnbc’s audience left.
I think the problem with late night is that now they are running low on good guess stars. I only watch one if they have someone I want to see interviewed.
Leno RULEZ and Conan SUCKS!! NBC are the biggest morons in the world for forcing Jay out!! Leno should’ve stayed at Tonight and Conan should’ve crawled into a hole somewhere!!
Conan’s Tonight is a DISASTER and the The Jay Leno Show RULEZ although it could use some tweaking. People are FOOLS for watching a bunch of shows on murder, violence, rape, etc. rather than watching comedy at 10 PM ET/ 9 PM CT!!
I can’t believe it!!!!!!! The “mainstream” media finally got wind of a bad ratings report for Conan and Lauren Michael’s bff, Fallon. The conspiracy to keep embarrassment out of Conan’s headlines if finally over. The fringe movement is severely damaged. Conan, brilliant job in 18-34 so far, bravo. You (the Red Headed destroyer) has managed to do worse than Leno in that demographic, the demographic that I thought loved Conan, and the pink Fallomingo. But even though, I was joking you still pulled way ahead in the 18-49 than Leno was. Wait,….You have lost 300,000 viewers from Leno in that department. But you still have the overall viewership numbers. That 2.5 million was a misprint.
jon, like I said, we’d have had these numbers on the site earlier if we saw cumulative numbers for late night like we do primetime.
i am always the guy that’ll run with the little man and i will stubbornly watch NBC’s late night schedule night after night, no matter how bad people say it is. I mean yes I don’t think Conan has been his usual funny since his start on the tonight show. Some nights, he would have been better off asking the audience for new jokes. But Late Night with Jimmy Fallon i love. I think to many people wrote him off after the terrible first show and the first week. It’s been a work in progress from the start and i think he’s getting there. Yes Schmoker the Monty Python interview was a little bland, i’ll give you that. But all the others from at least May on have been great. And finally i will not watch the Late show because i can’t stand Dave’s recycled jokes and his stupid repetitiveness. I hope when he retires they give Craig the job cus’ he’s someone who id rather watch, and do occasionally during breaks on late night.
Avery,Jimmy “Talon” Fallon (As in the big bird talon from Mario 64) is only beating Craig in the 18-34 because those are the Jimmy Fallon fans that have no future and live in their friend’s basement with your friend and his girlfriend…..Fact is, the only Reason Fallon beats Craig in the demo is because Craig was TERRIBLE during an 8 month period in late 2008 to mid 2009 when he was too happy because he had just fallen in love and gotten married and realized he hated is job and just wanted to hang out with his girlfriend. Luckily Craig got his act together (his honeymoon wore off) and became funny again this summer (albeit not as funny as before he fell in love), and has been so ever since. I know i miss the jingle though.
I hate to tell everyong this, but Carson was not God. Let’s get over him. Let’s give the new entertainers a chance and quit bringing up his name
I agree with Debbie to a certain extent. Kronkite, in my opinion was vastly overrated. He was Rather before Rather, nobody cares. And Jack Buck was overrated too, I mean, “I cant believe what I just saw” and then (I can’t believe what I just saw” in a more emotional tone. Not that his son Joe is any better……About Joe, on a good day he’s not that bad, and thats all I can compliment him on. I mean, Joe, Darren Oliver is a good picture, but you don’t have to compliment him for 5 minutes while a rather exciting game is going on. Joe is worse than Brian Williams and that guy from E Stern i think that all of a sudden likes sports when I bet my life savings he pretended not to in the 90s. Just cause “sports wasn’t cool in the 90s” doesn’t mean you ride that and ruin your credibility before your career even started.
I’m Irish, I was raised in Boston… and even I don’t want anything to do with “The Tonight Show” anymore. It’s pretty much unwatchable. I’m not going to put all the blame on Conan — although he deserves his fair share — because the writing is atrocious. But it’s not hard to see why the viewers fled in droves. Old AND young.
Conan was a mistake and NBC’s afraid to fix it
I’m actually starting to like Fallon better than Conan. I didn’t think that was possible…
>>>I can’t believe it!!!!!!! The “mainstream” media finally got wind of a bad ratings report for Conan and Lauren Michael’s bff, Fallon.
Heh. Lauren. I’ll given you the benefit of the doubt and call it a typo.
Conan O’Brien should be the most pissed person on NBC…..He was given the Tonight Show 4 years ago…and then NBC in essence took it away. A large part of the Tonight Show’s core audience has now moved to 10pm…Leaving Conan relying on the ratings from local news to pick him up……It’s HORRENDOUS…NBC has Leno as the lead in to late night….NO ER or MEDIUM or…LAW AND ORDER to lead into late night. Of course Conan’s gonna struggle….the rug has been pulled from under him..and it’s a damn shame..He’s funny ..and Jimmy Fallon is growing quite funny too.
Conan is like Razorblade Suitcase without “Swallowed”
Fallon is like Razorblade Suitcase without “Greedy Fly”….not that Greedy Fly is anything better than a slightly above average song with a 5 minute shelfspan.
Not that I endorse Razorblade Suitcase without “Swallowed”.
Craig, Conan was losing viewers BEFORE Leno’s show debuted on September 14th.
I stop watching Jay. The new show feels rush, rush and rush. I enjoyed relaxed Jay, not this new forced fast-paced one. Does he need to catch a train after the show? Why so rush?
If Conan were funny, instead of insipidly stupid, he might garner more fans. His show has always been moronic and he comes across as an elitist snob. Even if he were mildly funny it would be watchable. But the idiotic nonsense his writers saddle him with are truly nauseating. NBC, do yourself a favor, cancel this mouth-breathing twit and just run a test pattern. You might see a bump.
Conan, an elitist snob??? No way!!!
It’s simple. Carson & Leno were funny; O’Brien is just silly.
The execs at NBC are dumb. There is no excuse for any of the pitiful shows they have on the air. They need to take a break and think about their rep. I think the Leno thing was ahuge mistake and think back when they had the writers strike a couple of years ago. If the writers can’t come up with creative material they should be fired and fire all the exces and put Seth Macfarlan in charge of NBC.
Leno sucks and is boring. Conan is too child like and Fallon is stupid and Letterman is just lucky and nothing more.
The best thing that could happen is for GE to sell off its entertainment unit to someone who knows what they’re doing — a company that will wipe the slate clean, dump all the shows, especially the late night shows which NBC has botched up so badly.
You can tell by the way things are going, there’s no hope left or a way out for NBC’s late night — get rid of Conan, Fallon and Jay (though no longer late night, he is suffering from his former connection to the late night scene).
The Tonight Show has been poisoned — RIP.
The Tonight Show franchise is forever tarnished by Conan. I posted that a couple months ago, and believe it even more strongly now. The only thing consistent is that Conan has lost year to year comparisons to Jay in all demographics and consequently, total viewers. NBC should not given in to the crybaby’s demand that Jay be removed from the Tonight Show and replaced by him. I only see two possibilities to salvage the franchise, either move Jay back to 11:30 or replace Conan with Sarah Palin.
The Tonight Show wasn’t broke but NBC tried to fix it anyway.
For starters, not many people watch late night shows anyway. The media loves to quote these guys but nobody is watching! America goes to bed at 10 p.m. and those who stay up later are in clubs or playing Call to Duty into the wee hours.
I believe that Conan O’Brien had a bad start on late night in 1993 and had a 1.5 rating. However, when David Letterman came to visited him in 1994, his ratings improved to 2.5 million people. By 1995, the critics say that he really came along in the late night race. I don’t think that it’ll be the same thing with jimmy fallon, however, I think that Carson Daly should go to ABC to be on at 12:30am because he wanted late night when conan o’brien was chosen for the tonight show, and NBC picked jimmy fallon instead. Plus, He’s seen by over 1 million people at 1:30am with Last Call with Carson Daly.
conan aint funny and his side kick is a gay blade,,and Leno is to early,,,dave has gone and set up a show for a democrat platform,,,I love more and more unwrapped N
Fallon has improved quite a bit. His delivery is still off, but his monologues have actually been funnier than jay or conan lately. I swear some of Conan’s old writers must have stayed in NY because I feel the old conan style in alot of Fallon’s jokes. The Artie Lange interview he just did was absolutely classic, I high point for the show so far I think. I thought conan would only make Tonight bigger, but his humor doesn’t translate well at the earlier time period. I just can’t picture some middle aged couple putting the kids to bed and watching some of Conan’s darker/smart-ass humor at times (Triumph, Actual Items, etc). I know some people just don’t get self depricating humor too, which conan does alot of. Jay was perfect at that time because he was very mainstream and easy to swallow. One of conan’s strengths was taking over a lame interview and making it funny, but on Tonight he has too many big names promoting big crap so he has to sit there and pretend just like Jay did.
Although, conan peaked about 5-6 years ago and had been getting less funny for a while on late night. I think expectations were too high going in, watch the last few months of Late Night and you’ll see he’s mostly on the same track.
Compartng Leno to Conan is like comparing the Taj to a drab ghetto. Good man, Conan…but just not in the same league.
Is it possible to replace conan with craig ferguson so that we can all go to bed earlier? People move from company to company all the time, right?
I’ve never read opinions that were this skewed. Why did this turn into a “Conan Hate-Fest”? Comparing Leno and Conan is more like comparing Coke and Pepsi. Both are big names, one is relatively older or more “original”, both have devout fans and some who like both, and most importantly at the end of the day you get you what you want. In case you were wondering, Fallon is more like RC cola.