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Originally Posted by AFC-911
Actually it's Leno's dismal ratings at 10pm that was the cause of all this. Not Conan's.
Besides, every new host needed time to gain an audience and ratings. Jay Leno was no different.
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I just read an article which showed that Jay lost only a small amount of viewership from 11:35PM to 10PM, 5.3 to 5.2 million.
The problem wasn't his "loss" of viewership, it was that viewership is supposed to be much higher in that timeslot. His original audience moved with him, and he picked up no one.
This created a problem with the 11PM news and the lead in for Conan. This problem here is non Jay vs. Conan, but of a bunch of stupid NBC executives that created this mess in the first place. NBC stated that they knew that Jay wasn't going to do as well as the dramas, but that they could accept lower ratings, and lower ad revenues, since the cost of the show was much much less. Again, this shows that the NBC executives were not focused on the big picture, only at these couple of shows.
Personally, I think that NBC should have worked to come up with a different show for Jay, and let Conan run. Or let Jay go. This whole thing shows what a bunch of idiots that Zucker and company are.
If Conan goes head to head with Jay and Dave at 11:30, will I watch? I'm sure I'll try it out. In the Central time zone, the FOX affiliate runs the late news an hour before the others. If Conan starts at 11PM, he might do well. I usually watch the local news, and my wife watches E!