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Late Night Wars - Conan's last Tonight Show was TONIGHT a long time ago

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Captain Sparrow said:
Hopefully I don't need to post links that Letterman was killing Conan.
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You do, because while Letterman was winning in overall viewers, he more often than not tied in or lost the 18-49 demo, which is far more important to advertising dollars than overall viewer-ship.

So there was no killing going on. Saying that is dishonest.
 
The Foul said:
The person I really feel sorry for is Max Weinberg, who no longer has a gig in Springsteens band or as bandleader for the Tonight Show. Honestly I'm more of a Paul Shaffer guy but Max still had his highlights (getting hit by that truck on the way to a springsteen gig is classic comedy). Heres hoping Conan will bring him back when he returns.
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Buh? I thought Max was still working with Springsteen? I recall them being close friends.
 
Shouta said:
Buh? I thought Max was still working with Springsteen? I recall them being close friends.
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I don't think the poster made his point very well. Weinberg is still in the E Street Band. It's just Springsteen is done with his tour at the moment, so the band is just hanging around at this point. I'm sure Max has other projects though, he always juggles three of four things at once.
 
BrandNew said:
I don't think the poster made his point very well. Weinberg is still in the E Street Band. It's just Springsteen is done with his tour at the moment, so the band is just hanging around at this point. I'm sure Max has other projects though, he always juggles three of four things at once.
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Oh, that. Eh, Max probably has quite a bit saved himself and he probably has personal projects too. I'm just worried about Poor Andy =(
 
Yeah Andy's had a rough career. From what I remember reading both he and Max had to arrange separate severance negotiations with NBC, and I can't imagine what Andy would say in that meeting.

"Please, just let me feed my family."
 
Captain Sparrow said:
Hopefully I don't need to post links that Letterman was killing Conan
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After the bump from his final week, Conan was beating Letterman in the key 18-49 demo by 10%. That's the average out of the 7 months Conan was on the air.

For reference, Kimmel was getting half of that in the same timespan. So no. Conan was tying Letterman in the most important demographic. Was Conan getting creamed in total viewers? Yeah, sure. I'll concede that. 4.2 mil to 2.8 mil. But 18-49 is the demo advertisers want, and it's worth much, much more than total viewers.

If you want to see someone get killed in ratings, look at Kimmel. Over that same timespan he got half the 18-49 rating of Letterman. But his show is on a small budget and remains profitable.

You could say Conan "lost Leno's lead", but a new host in a new timeslot needs time to grow in. When Leno took over, he wound up bombing away most of Carson's ratings and losing to Letterman, who was also adjusting to a new timeslot and network. Considering the fact Conan was having the same problem against a Letterman who's been cemented at his network and timeslot for almost 17 years, one could even say he had a better first 7 months as Tonight Show host than Leno, ratings-wise.

EDIT: Oh, and anyone who knows about how work as a session musician goes knows that Max and the rest of the band have absolutely nothing to worry about financially.
 
NBC programming before 11:00 also diminished the number of people turned to that channel at 11:00 and beyond. It's exactly why affiliates revolted.
 
The Abominable Snowman said:
Does anyone have an apples-to-apples comparison to Conan's 7 months on the air and Jay's past, say, 5 years on air? I remember one time where Leno wasn't doing so well on air recently also
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Jay's last 5 years at 11:30 were much, MUCH better than Conan's 7 months at 11:30.

But that's after having 12 years in that timeslot on that network. Plenty of time to build a fanbase and let them stick.
 
The should have given the Tonight Show to Brodie Bruce!


tumblr_ksz69hEzLs1qz51y8.png
 
On the other hand: O'Brien's bump is clearly driven by the headlines rather than an organic rise in popularity. Such gains in late night are almost always temporary.
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Hugh Grant, anyone?

Gave Leno his start, if I am thinking correctly.
 
jdogmoney said:
Hugh Grant, anyone?

Gave Leno his start, if I am thinking correctly.
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You're thinking correctly. Leno was getting beat by Letterman until the Hugh Grant appearance spurred headlines and boosted his ratings to first place, where he remained until his faux-retirement.
 
Personifried said:
You're thinking correctly. Leno was getting beat by Letterman until the Hugh Grant appearance spurred headlines and boosted his ratings to first place, where he remained until his faux-retirement.
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What was so special about a hugh grant appearance that gave Leno such a big boost?
 
Kard8p3 said:
What was so special about a hugh grant appearance that gave Leno such a big boost?
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Wikipedia said:
On 27 June 1995, Grant was arrested by L.A. Vice officers in a residential area not far from Sunset Boulevard for misdemeanour lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown.[141] He pleaded no contest to the charges. He was fined $1,180 (£800), placed on two years' summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program .[142][143]

The arrest occurred about two weeks before the release of Grant's first major studio film, Nine Months, which he was scheduled to promote on several American television shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and, as recalled in former employee Don Sweeney's memoirs, "despite his arrest, Hugh Grant kept his appointment to appear on Jay's show."[144] The interview was a career-making hit for Leno and Grant was singled out for not making excuses for the incident.[145][146] He famously said:

“ I think you know in life what's a good thing to do and what's a bad thing, and I did a bad thing. And there you have it. ”
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.
 
i watched Carson Daily tonight for the first time in forever, and damn i want bad things to happen to whoever does the editing, the transitions between camera angles is damn near enough to induce motion sickness
 
GodfatherX said:
i watched Carson Daily tonight for the first time in forever, and damn i want bad things to happen to whoever does the editing, the transitions between camera angles is damn near enough to induce motion sickness
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It's absolutely, 100%, true. :lol

I mean I am not a Daily hater or anything, not at all, his "new" format is vastly improved over the old comedic setting (he's not capable of intentional comedy). But that black and white to color transitioning thing is ridiculous and retarded. If he drops it, stays with color, and has a steady cam setup, you got yourself a show that's watchable for said time period.
 
Has anyone got the link to the website with Jay Monologue's with awkward crowd silence?

I know its in this thread but too big to search.
 
Grug said:
Has anyone got the link to the website with Jay Monologue's with awkward crowd silence?

I know its in this thread but too big to search.
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Just google "jay bombs". I would post a link if I weren't on a cell.
 
The best counter to the whole ratings-argument was written by Aaron Barnhart, in his excellent dissection of the Oprah-Leno interview (worth a read, definitely):
He also compares his old 11:35 numbers to Conan’s 11:35 numbers, which would be acceptable except that, again, he is measuring the total audience figures for “The Tonight Show,” which went from 5 million under Leno to 2.5 million under O’Brien. NBC has not used total audience figures in any meaningful way since the 1990s, when it began pushing aggressively for advertisers to rely on the 18-to-49 demographic. So this is a bogus comparison in several ways.

The correct way to measure is 18-49, comparable time period, year to year. And as I wrote last week:

Conan’s “Tonight Show” rating among adults ages 18-49, a key group for advertisers, has declined by the same amount, 30 percent, as NBC’s rating at 9 p.m. (10 Eastern), when “The Jay Leno Show” airs.

In other words, Conan was being hurt by his low-rated, non-traditional lead-in ... the star of which was then asked to take Conan’s place at 11:35. And people wonder why he's pissed.

I have had multiple conversations with people in the know the past year about how this transition would play out. Without getting into specifics, because these were background interviews, there was broad consensus on these three points:

* Late-night is a long-term investment, so patience will be exercised with Conan.
* It’s expected that he will lose the total-viewers race to Letterman, but as long as he doesn’t lose the demo, he’s golden.
* Even if he loses the demo at first, in the long term he’s in a much better position than Letterman or Leno would be, since he appeals to a younger viewer.

You will not find anyone in the industry who would argue with the soundness of these points. And NBC just betrayed all of them.
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I want everyone to keep that breathtaking statement in mind when Leno’s 18-49 demographic slides down to 1.0, as it inevitably must do. Jay’s audience isn’t getting any younger, and with each passing year another few hundred thousand turn 50. He may even hit 1.0 by the end of his current four-year deal with NBC.

And when it does, let’s see where Conan’s 18-49 rating is.
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When Leno says that Conan’s “Tonight Show” lost money, there is no way he is being truthful. I’ll stop short of calling him a liar, because what he’s doing is passing along NBC’s lie. Which we will now dissect.

First, By all internal accounts, Conan’s ratings in the demo were right where NBC expected them to be. In his last season doing “Late Night,” his 18-49 demographic rating was 0.8. That was good for first place at 12:35. In order to tie David Letterman in the demo, he needed a 25 percent boost. And he got it, despite having a lead-in that was 30 percent worse in the demo than Leno had enjoyed a year before. That millstone of a lead-in, again, was “The Jay Leno Show.”
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More good stuff here: http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2010/01/oprahjay.html

... so here's the final tally for last year, in the according-to-NBC-themselves-most-important-demo-of-18-to-49:
NBC “Tonight,” 1.4/6
CBS “Late Show,” 1.1/4
ABC “Nightline,” 1.1/4
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So how, again, was Conan losing? He was still beating Letterman (and this excludes his recordbreaking final week, only goes up until december '09), arguably without having the time to build up his audience for late night. Plus, he had Leno as a lead-in. Who knows where Conan would have been, two years from now, without Leno in front of him? As Barnhart says, there's a high chance that in a few years Leno's 18-49 rating is 1.1, 1.0. Conan was already pulling better numbers than that. NBC made a stupid decision, plain and simple.
 
Darko said:
"The Tonight Show with Conan O Brien COMPLETE HDTV XviD"


sweet. :D
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If you look around, many of the episodes are actually available in HD, as opposed to those which are re-encoded to a lower resolution.
 
joshcryer said:
It's absolutely, 100%, true. :lol

I mean I am not a Daily hater or anything, not at all, his "new" format is vastly improved over the old comedic setting (he's not capable of intentional comedy). But that black and white to color transitioning thing is ridiculous and retarded. If he drops it, stays with color, and has a steady cam setup, you got yourself a show that's watchable for said time period.
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I completely agree. I hated Daly when he was trying to do a traditional late night talk show, replete with lame monologue and a desk, but the new format suits him much more. It fits better with the time he's on too. But good lord, they've got to drop the horrible editing and black and white to color thing. It reminds me of MTV circa 1989.
 
snesfreak said:
:lol :lol :lol @ Andy
I'll be making gifs ASAP, I wish this stuff was easier to find.
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I just have the vision of an dirty Andy with boxers & beard starting a pirate Conan site on a biege computer covered in cigarette ash.
 
DrEvil said:
Original version:
http://www.televisiontunes.com/Late_Late_Show_with_Craig_Ferguson_(The).html


Newest version he's been using lately:

http://www.televisiontunes.com/Late_Late_Show_with_Craig_Ferguson.html
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The Television Production Music Museum has better versions:

Late Late Show Page

Direct download links from that page:
Theme (long version) -- http://tvpmm.com/musicL/LLS-CF2.mp3
Theme - http://tvpmm.com/musicL/LLS-CF1.mp3

They also have the music from when Kilborn and Snyder hosted the LLS.

They also have Conan's Late Night theme:
Late Night with Conan O'Brien Page

Direct download link:
Late Night with Conan O'Brien Theme: http://tvpmm.com/musicL/LateNightwithConanOBrien.mp3

The beauty of these is that these are clean/original recordings so there's no voiceover, no crowd noise or anything. The page is just flat out awesome as it has original music from a ton of old and new shows.
 
Blugh, the old Late Night theme with Conan is way way way too slow. The uptempo of the last few years of Late Night and his latest Tonight Show arrangement are much better.
 
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