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O'Brien out, Leno back in?

There will be a curiosity factor for the first few shows, but I doubt it lasts longer than a week. Then he'll be in the same boat Conan was in.

I'm betting it only lasts for the first show.

I've been tempted to leave my cable box on and tuned to CBS if I don't stay up to watch Letterman so he gets another +1 on his ratings even if I'm not actually watching.
Ratings do not work that way.

Hmmm. Someone told me who works in marketing that the cable companies can tell what channel you are watching and report that back to whoever to determine ratings. Was I (they) misinformed?
 
Hrm.

I guess my friend forgot to mention I need a box. My cable bill certainly doesn't give me a credit for having one. Oh well. I wanted to make a difference! ;)

Makes you wonder how accurate the ratings really are. If there are shows that are actually getting a lot of viewers but since they don't have the ratings box, they get canned.
 
I'd say if you want to help a show, stream the show online thru Hulu or the network's site. It's unclear how much the networks are counting online streaming in their ratings, but they do look at those numbers, as opposed to what you watch on tv if you don't have a nielsen spy box.
 
In his "Tonight Show" return, Leno promoted Tuesday's lineup, which includes Sarah Palin.


In hyping Palin's appearance, he said she "has never been on a late night show."


Palin, of course, appeared on the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" in December alongside William Shatner, where she read Shatner's autobiography.


Nikki Finke writes that Leno's statement is evidence of "NBC/Leno erasing all trace of Conan." NBC had already gone out of its way to "erase" Conan from the web, removing every single "Tonight Show" that he hosted from Hulu and NBC websites.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/jay-leno-disses-conan-for_n_481804.html

:brickwall:

Has someone dug George Orwell up from the grave and hired him as the publicity guy for Leno? OK, I can understand it if the terms of Conan's departure included things like removing his shows from Hulu and the like. There's actually some sense in that from a legal and commercial perspective (not much, but some). But this ongoing effort to pretend Conan doesn't exist anymore ... no, this goes beyond George Orwell, this is passing into Andy Kaufman "is this real?" territory.

Alex
 
I'm betting it only lasts for the first show.

I've been tempted to leave my cable box on and tuned to CBS if I don't stay up to watch Letterman so he gets another +1 on his ratings even if I'm not actually watching.
Ratings do not work that way.

Hmmm. Someone told me who works in marketing that the cable companies can tell what channel you are watching and report that back to whoever to determine ratings. Was I (they) misinformed?


More they misunderstood.

The cable company very like can, and does, tell what channel your TV is on at all times and what shows you record on your cable company's TiFaux. As well Tivo tracks and reports as well. But it's likely this information is never seriously considered by the networks as it can be manipulated.

Ratings are more determined by the 1500 or so "Nieseln Ratings Boxes" around the country that more acurately report what a person is watching and even, due to the viewer(s) having to report their age via passcode, precisely who and what is watching.
 
Leno's going to do pretty huge ratings for a while. Its a shame because the clips of last night i've seen prove his show is as bland as ever.

But bland sells.

I kind of wouldn't mind seeing Conan be on cable. He'd consider it a step down, but this whole idea of trying to capture the older middle america people... it's so not Conan's style of humor. He's absurdist. The idea that his show is going to be judged on how well he appeals to old folks is a complete disservice to him. Go someplace where the only rating people will care about is his age demographic one, and he'll be golden.
 
This is going to sound trivial but the set design for Jay Leno's new show was abhorrent. It literally looked like Jay old's set (for his primetime show) but merely redressed. It looked really tacky. I know they only had a month to construct a new set for Jay but seriously, that was the best they could do?
Well, it was the set from his primetime show, just redressed. :)

Remember that NBC had just paid a lot of money to build this sit less than a year ago. I'm sure they wouldn't have been thrilled at the idea of tearing it all down and rebuilding it again. But, I agree that it does look awful, and I hate his new desk.

Frankly, my favorite late night set is Letterman's. Of course, he's helped by the fact that he's actually in a theater instead of a sound stage. But I think his just looks the, well, "classiest" of all the late night sets.
 
So what are they doing with Conan's super expensive set? It's just sitting in mothballs? I'm surprised they didn't give Leno the Conan Tonight Show set and just never ever reference that they did it on the show ever.
 
So what are they doing with Conan's super expensive set? It's just sitting in mothballs? I'm surprised they didn't give Leno the Conan Tonight Show set and just never ever reference that they did it on the show ever.

It's LA. Maybe he didn't want to change his commute.
 
Several comments that Conan made as the show came to a close gave me the impression that it was "his" set in some fashion. He constantly talked about how it would be closed down and used as storage and whatnot. I'm sure he'd have made some other kinds of jokes if they'd just be able to go in and change it around for Leno's show.
 
It's NBC's set. They own the studio and paid for it. There wasn't going to be any chance Jay Leno would waltz over and shoot his Tonight Show there though. He has too much of an ego to do that and NBC has been trying to remove any element of Conan ever being there so showing Leno on the same set that a ton of people tuned into just a few weeks ago for Conan's final show wouldn't suit their purpose.
 
Has someone dug George Orwell up from the grave and hired him as the publicity guy for Leno? OK, I can understand it if the terms of Conan's departure included things like removing his shows from Hulu and the like. There's actually some sense in that from a legal and commercial perspective (not much, but some). But this ongoing effort to pretend Conan doesn't exist anymore ... no, this goes beyond George Orwell, this is passing into Andy Kaufman "is this real?" territory.

It wouldn't feel quite as weird if there wasn't also a clause in Conan's severance package that prevents him from appearing on TV at all until April. (Frankly, I think that NBC is gaining very little by putting such severe restrictions on Conan. If I were them, I'd have saved some money by waiving the non-compete clause in exchange for knocking $10-20 million off that severance package.)
 
Several comments that Conan made as the show came to a close gave me the impression that it was "his" set in some fashion. He constantly talked about how it would be closed down and used as storage and whatnot. I'm sure he'd have made some other kinds of jokes if they'd just be able to go in and change it around for Leno's show.
Conan's set no longer exists. It started being dismantled after the last show, and a week later all of it was destroyed.
 
CONAN LIVES!

Conan had a Twitter account he started up not too long ago, but he hadn't followed anybody with it (he has like 500k followers or something).

The other day he posted/tweeted:

I've decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.

So now this random girl is the sole person he's following: 1 Following 555,951 Followers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/06/sarah-killen-obriens-firs_n_488681.html
 
CONAN LIVES!

Conan had a Twitter account he started up not too long ago, but he hadn't followed anybody with it (he has like 500k followers or something).

The other day he posted/tweeted:

I've decided to follow someone at random. She likes peanut butter and gummy dinosaurs. Sarah Killen, your life is about to change.
So now this random girl is the sole person he's following: 1 Following 555,951 Followers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/06/sarah-killen-obriens-firs_n_488681.html

Seems that she's gone from 3 followers prior to over 14,000 since the Conan announcement.

Conan's First Twitter Pal Talks to Fancast about her "Hero"

Conan Twitter Tracker: How Conan met Sarah
 
Blerg... tickets are a bit too expensive for a comedy tour. $40 for cheap seats at Constitutional Hall?
 
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