A hefty 10.3 million viewers tuned in for Conan O’Brien’s final outing at the helm of NBC’s The Tonight Show, the host’s largest audience since taking over the helm June 1, according to figures provided by Nielsen to the LA Times. By comparison, O’Brien’s premiere telecast of the show drew 9.2 million viewers. It’s no stretch to posture that viewers tuned in to the final telecast, mostly in the wake of the drama that unfolded around Jay Leno’s return to The Tonight Show franchise. For the week, O’Brien’s Tonight Show averaged 5.3 million viewers, his highest since his premiere week (which averaged 6.1 million) and far ahead of the 3.9 million David Letterman’s Late Show netted.
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How many viewers did Jay’s “final” show get back in May?
How many viewers did Jay’s first show in Sept. get? 18 mil. And, no, they did not expect it stay that way but it remained higher then Conan’s the whole time.
He was asking about Jay’s FINAL Tonight Show, not about his first prime time show. Anybody have that answer? It was the obvious comparison to make and conspicuously absent from this news article.
Why the snark? Shawshank was asking a legitimate question.
That’s probably because it was a primetime show at 10 pm. duh
Ratings for primetime 10 oclock shows are very different for late night shows. I know this is shocking but millions of people who watch shows at 10pm go to bed at 11 or after the news. The Jay leno Show was cancelled because the ratings he was pulling in were NOT good for 10pm. Affiliates were mad that Leno was not even getting ratings as good as a repeat of CSI Miami! Conan did extremely well for his time slot. And if he had old Tonight Show lead ins like ER and Law and Order, he would still be on the air. Instead he got the 5 night a week crappy Jay leno Show.
The only reason Jay had 18 mill viewers was because Kanye happened to be booked that day which was the night after the Taylor Swift incident.
“It’s no stretch to posture…”? Do you mean “posit”?
Or “postulate”, maybe?
I miss COCO
Conan will be back. It’s things like Truimph, the Masterbating Bear, and the Walker Texas Ranger lever that I’ll miss more since NBC will probably never let them see the light of day anymore.
Oh, the lever…so awesome! Hopefully he comes up with new things that are even better.
Triumph is played by Robert Smigel the writer of SNL’s TV fun house and lots more. He’s good friends with Conan, but loyal to NBC. I wonder if he owns rights to Triumph as opposed to NBC.
By a mile, I prefer Conan over Jay. I just don’t like the way Conan tries to act out his jokes after saying the punchline.
I like Jimmy Kimmel, then Craig, then Dave.
I think that’s what makes him hilarious, Looking/acting like a total dork/geek. rrruuuuu duuurrr!!! LMAO
I am a Letterman fan always have been,My question to all the folks who tuned into Conan’s last show, where you you before when he lagged in the ratings.I do think this may have been a good time for Jay to retire and go out smelling like a rose instead of the odor permeating around him now. But nonetheless this has always been about ratings and money. Had Conan’s Tonight Show swept the hour most evenings than perhaps we would be having another convo.
To all the people that are going to post “well if all these people were watching then Conan would still be on” or “where were all his supporters when he was on?”
Shut the fudge up!
If Jay would have actually retired, then all the people that stuck with watching The Jay Leno show would have watched the Tonight Show. I can bet money on that.
I don’t care about ratings – Conan is funny. Jay is not. Bottom line. I don’t care if 2 billion people watch Jay, he is not funny. Headlines are not bad. But that’s not Jay – that’s laughing at people. Other than that, the old geezers can have Jay so they can “guffaw” themselves to sleep watching the “Dancing Obamas” or whatever Jay is doing.
Sorry Hank…Coco was not funny at all….he was horrible. He looked uncomfortable interviewing guests and was not nice to some of them. His comedy was for 18 year old idiots. The masterbating bear skits? Sorry…nobody I know thought they were funny…just crude. Jay Leno was classy and funny and people enjoyed him. That’s why he is the king of comedy.
King of Comedy???
Sandi??
WE all know its you JAY. Stay off the boards.
“No apology necessary” sandi… all of your geriatric friends can have Jay and his puns and dancing . And you are the only person who, after all that has happened in the last month, I have heard call Jay “classy”. Ever wonder why like every other comedian hates Leno? He’s extremely UN-classy! That has been the point of almost every article on this web site for weeks!
Jay is so the King of Comedy – he is safe and inoffensive – what’s wrong with that? I like comedy that doesn’t take chances and so does Amercica. Jay Leno may be bland and boring but at least he doesn’t swear and cuss. Conan is a communist.
Hahaha Sandi!!! Thanks for that laugh. You just validated the crazy with that Communist comment. I declare that your opinion is officially irrelevant.
headlines: Stolen from Letterman’s show in the 1980′s
Jaywalking :Stolen from Steve Allen show in the 1950′s
Current bit where celebs out drive each other in a Green car: Stolen from BBC’s Top Gear.
I’m with Coco!
I hope we get to hear about the ratings on the repeats from this week. That would be interesting. I’ll bet a lot of viewers are like me and forgot what they were missing and now want to see more of Conan.
bye bye conan.
When Leno first took over the Tonight Show, Letterman beat him in ratings for a few years, up until his Hugh Grant interview in 1995. Obviously, Conan’s ratings were going to need a little time to build up as well. They never would have been as bad if he’d had a better lead in. You can’t blame the show losing money on Conan. Not only did the Tonight show suffer with a Leno lead in, but how else do you explain why several local NBC newscasts went from being #1 to #2 or #3 in a market? Obviously people tuned out for Leno at his new time, and never came back to the network. IT doesn’t mean Leno isn’t a good comedian, or a good late night host…or that he deserved to be kicked out originally. But that’s the choice NBC made, and instead of letting him go off to another network and giving Conan a chance to work his magic, they tanked. They chose wrong. And if Leno was really such an unstoppable force they didn’t want to compete against, then he wouldn’t have tanked at 10pm. TEAM COCO:)
I can’t stand the comedy of Leno or Conan. Leno is bland boring and Conan tries too hard. But at least Leno knows how to conduct an interview without making it all about himself.
Glad Conan was able to salvage a pretty lackluster run at 11:35 with some good press and one night of newsworthy ratings. Hopefully now this story will die a quick death.
Leno is the bestest, Conan sucks. He never did funny stuffs. Leno always has good jokes and he make me laugh so you all are stoopid. LOL. Expecially Megan you are wrong.
Wow, thanks, urfreegiftscom! What an awesome plug!
bugger off