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Re: Coco heads to TBS
onan O'Brien is headed to cable.
In a surprise move, the comedian and, briefly, host of NBC's Tonight Show, is moving his late-night show to Turner's TBS, where it will air Monday through Thursdays at 11 p.m. ET/PT starting in November. George Lopez's Lopez Tonight, which now airs in that slot, will shift to midnight.
'CONAN LIVE': Tour kicks off tonight in Oregon
TBS had proposed an offer to O'Brien, including ownership of his show, calling him "this unbelievable voice of a generational talent sitting out there," says Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks.
But the talks began in earnest only on Wednesday, after Lopez blessed the arrangement and urged O'Brien to say yes. O'Brien left NBC after the network announced plans to move Jay Leno into his 11:30 slot.
A five-year deal was signed late Friday at a price Koonin would describe only as "competitive." O'Brien, 46, will remain in Los Angeles.
Fox was his expected future home, and : Eexecutives had talked openly for months of their interest in hiring the comedian to expand into late night during the week, after several failures years ago. But its local stations were reluctant to clear their lineups of lucrative syndicated reruns, making it unclear how widely a new Conan show on Fox would initially be seen.
Though prohibited by his $32.5 million NBC exit deal from appearing on television until September, O'Brien has stayed in the public spotlight, starting a widely followed Twitter feed and launching a multi-city stand-up tour, which begins tonight in Eugene, Ore.
"In three months I've gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I'm headed back to basic cable," the comedian said in a statement. "My plan is working perfectly."
The TBS deal allows O'Brien to return to late night but avoid head-to-head competition, at least in his first half-hour, with David Letterman and Jay Leno, whom he succeeded and was later replaced by at NBC. Instead, O'Brien will compete for his core audience of younger male viewers with Comedy Central's Daily Show With Jon Stewart and the Adult Swim channel, which is also owned by Turner.
TBS averages 1.7 million viewers in prime time, ranking seventh, but has established a clear brand as a comedy destination with reruns of Seinfeld, Family Guy, The Office and other shows.
Koonin calls the deal "transformative," expects it will "bring a lot of new people to the network" and, he hopes, "top comedic talent" for other projects. The show will be just like the one O'Brien has done at NBC since 1993: "He told me, 'I have 3,000 examples of the show I want to do,' " Koonin says.
The network began promoting its latest conquest Monday night with a spot using the now-familiar "I'm with Coco" illustration, which changes to "Coco is with TBS."
Brad Adgate, analyst at ad firm Horizon Media, says the move is "not as strange as you might think," and highlights the appeal of cable over broadcast networks, which rely on local, often independently owned affiliates to air their programs.
"Lopez is doing serviceably in the time period with about 1 million viewers, but Conan could do more," Adgate says. (O'Brien averaged about 2.4 million on NBC.)
Yet "ratings expectations aren't going to be as high" as they might be on Fox, Adgate says. "This, for him, is probably going to be less of a pressured situation. It's about as safe a bet as you can make for him."
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Re: Coco heads to TBS
Good for Conan. Although it was clear he was going to get another job at some network, sometimes showbiz careers can be ruined by going through what he went through. I'm glad he'll get another chance. I'm a little surprised he chose TBS though. All the rumors focused on Fox. I guess there'll be less pressure at TBS.
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Re: Coco heads to TBS
This puts him in direct competition with the Daily Show, and on an even platform (both basic cable). That'll be an interesting battle/relationship, although I can't see Conan winning.
Re: Coco heads to TBS
I'm a little surprised he chose TBS though. All the rumors focused on Fox. I guess there'll be less pressure at TBS.
Local Fox stations actually do pretty well by airing Simpsons & Seinfeld reruns at late night. Basically the local station themselves choose & pay for the programming, however they get alot more local ads to sell, and the ratings do pretty good. Usually it's among people who don't have cable or satellite (1/3 of households), and don't feel like watching the 11 o'clock news on NBC ABC or CBS. So their competition is pretty small. If Fox signed Conan, alot of stations would likely get less ads to sell, but the ratings probably wouldn't be that significantly higher to where stations would charge a whole lot more for ads.
I'm guessing Conan doesn't need the money, and doesn't care about winning the ratings war immediately. He's been pretty humiliated already, but now has the money to care less about it. He'll need thick skin as it might take 2-3 years to really establish his show & have a solid continual base. If it does badly & he gets canned early so what. His careers pretty much over but he'll live comfortably I'm sure, so there really isn't the same pressure, which I'm sure he's happy to not have anymore.
Re: Coco heads to TBS
faldor wrote:I'm a little surprised he chose TBS though. All the rumors focused on Fox. I guess there'll be less pressure at TBS.
Local Fox stations actually do pretty well by airing Simpsons & Seinfeld reruns at late night. Basically the local station themselves choose & pay for the programming, however they get alot more local ads to sell, and the ratings do pretty good. Usually it's among people who don't have cable or satellite (1/3 of households), and don't feel like watching the 11 o'clock news on NBC ABC or CBS. So their competition is pretty small. If Fox signed Conan, alot of stations would likely get less ads to sell, but the ratings probably wouldn't be that significantly higher to where stations would charge a whole lot more for ads.
I'm guessing Conan doesn't need the money, and doesn't care about winning the ratings war immediately. He's been pretty humiliated already, but now has the money to care less about it. He'll need thick skin as it might take 2-3 years to really establish his show & have a solid continual base. If it does badly & he gets canned early so what. His careers pretty much over but he'll live comfortably I'm sure, so there really isn't the same pressure, which I'm sure he's happy to not have anymore.
Fox didn't want him. Rupert Murdoch supposedly told Kevin O'Reilly, "if Fox TV can show me that we can make a profit, we'll do it".
Apparently the package Fox TV put together, didn't impress the old man, because they didn't make any attempt to acquire Conan.
My local Fox affiliate airs TMZ and Bernie Mac reruns in that 11:30p slot. No way Conan couldn't crush those shows.
Re: Coco heads to TBS
So I can either open for Lopez Tonight, or I can host The Tonight Show on NBC.
What a moron. Enjoy that buyout, you'll be crawling back to NBC in a few years.
He hosted the Tonight Show and failed, thanks in large part to Jay Leno. So this is the next best alternative. I realize he could've stayed on The Tonight Show and moved to midnight, but there's a point where you have to hold on to your pride. Something Jay Leno has no concept of.
I applaud Conan and wish him well.
Re: Coco heads to TBS
Have you guys heard the latest gossip about Max Weinberg wanting to leave Conan and fill the recently vacated band leader spot on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno? Talk about a slap in the face, IF that's true. Apparently it's been Max's dream to be on the Tonight Show and he was upset that he only got to experience that for such a short time. But would he really turn his back on Conan like that after all these years? And would Jay steal someone away again? (Stuttering John - Howard Stern). Well, of course he would.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out, and if the story has any validity.
