CNN Breaking News — Conan O’Brien will host a new late-night talk show on TBS, the cable TV network says.
7 thoughts on “Twitter: CNN Breaking News …”
Sandy Underpants
I didn’t realize how much I didn’t miss Conan O’Brien until I heard that he was coming back on TBS. Isn’t getting a show on TBS a sign of desperation or decline? Couldn’t he hold out for Fox, or Fox News even? Speaking of Fox News, they’re so hillarious when they criticize actors for making political statements, but they have Victoria Jackson and some stand-up comedian nobody’s ever heard on as legitimate primetime commentators on how the Tea Party drove Bart Stupak into retirement.
But anyway, Conan, wow, big whoop. I heard George Lopez has a show on TBS too, and that guy sucks so bad it only goes to prove that there are affirmative action groups covertly working within hollywood.
David K.
TBS is about to get a lot of viewers.
Sandy Underpants
If by “a lot” you mean 3 or 400, I agree.
The only people watching “Late Night” shows are people who are comatose after the 10pm network program and already slept through the nightly news. The typical Leno/Letterman viewer only turns off the TV if they wake up from wetting themselves or they have to change their suppository. Put a test pattern in place of any of these guys, there won’t be that much of a drop off.
To put into perspective how trivial this timeslot is, George Lopez is the king of TBS with like 500,000 viewers. The Mexican Soap Opera that airs in the middle of the day (I guess) on telemundo, draws 2.8 million viewers. It probably costs about 10% of what it costs to produce Lopez and draws 5 times the audience. Give me a break.
Jazz
Couldn’t he hold out for Fox…is the question on everyone’s mind, causing many to feel as Sandy does, that Conan just fell off the face of the planet by moving to TBS. But this may work out for Coco.
First of all, Fox was his only network choice among the four mainstays. But the 11 PM timeslot is tricky on Fox, since that is where the local affiliates make a large chunk of their profits by running reruns of the Simpsons. Those locals would not be happy switching to the much more expensive Conan O’Brien show, particularly when it also got lower ratings than those Simpson repeats.
Second, George Lopez’ numbers in the absolute may not be high, but he did win the 30-and-under late night demographic. I know, big whoop, 30-and-unders don’t watch that type of tv, it is reserved for snoozing old farts, as Sandy notes above. However, Conan never appealed to snoozing old farts, which is reason #1 why Leno is back on the Tonight Show (Leno’s irritating warmed-over ingratiations play well to old women in Topeka). Thus, pairing with George Lopez makes sense for Conan playing to his strengths.
Third, by delaying the start a few extra months (to November), Conan gives the media a bit of extra space to blather themselves out about why in the world he wouldn’t go to Fox.
Its a big risk, because TBS sucks. However, a Fox move would have failed for the same reason the Tonight Show gig failed. I give the guy credit for at least trying something that, while crazy from an external standpoint, makes a bit of sense given where his strengths are.
Brendan Loy
As someone on Twitter pointed out yesterday, no matter how much you think you like Conan O’Brien now, you’ll hate him by the end of the baseball playoffs. With Conan’s launch date in November, and the playoffs in October, the promotion on TBS is going to be insane. I hope they at least make a large number of clever ads, instead of 2 or 3 clever ads that become something substantially less clever on the 845th viewing.
Jazz
Good point about the playoffs – not sure if the Twitter guy went there, but the obvious example is Frank Caliendo as John Madden – very funny on Fox, but by the end of last year’s playoffs any mention of Turducken would make you instantly cringe.
kcatnd
Is anyone else annoyed by the “Very funny” and “We know drama” slogans for TBS and TNT? Or what’s the other one now, “Characters welcome”?
That Dr. House! What a character! Want to see more characters? Watch this station – we have the market cornered on characters/drama/funny!
If they ran those commercials for generic industries like cheese or pork in between the shows, I would probably quit television forever.
CNN Breaking News — Conan O’Brien will host a new late-night talk show on TBS, the cable TV network says.
I didn’t realize how much I didn’t miss Conan O’Brien until I heard that he was coming back on TBS. Isn’t getting a show on TBS a sign of desperation or decline? Couldn’t he hold out for Fox, or Fox News even? Speaking of Fox News, they’re so hillarious when they criticize actors for making political statements, but they have Victoria Jackson and some stand-up comedian nobody’s ever heard on as legitimate primetime commentators on how the Tea Party drove Bart Stupak into retirement.
But anyway, Conan, wow, big whoop. I heard George Lopez has a show on TBS too, and that guy sucks so bad it only goes to prove that there are affirmative action groups covertly working within hollywood.
TBS is about to get a lot of viewers.
If by “a lot” you mean 3 or 400, I agree.
The only people watching “Late Night” shows are people who are comatose after the 10pm network program and already slept through the nightly news. The typical Leno/Letterman viewer only turns off the TV if they wake up from wetting themselves or they have to change their suppository. Put a test pattern in place of any of these guys, there won’t be that much of a drop off.
To put into perspective how trivial this timeslot is, George Lopez is the king of TBS with like 500,000 viewers. The Mexican Soap Opera that airs in the middle of the day (I guess) on telemundo, draws 2.8 million viewers. It probably costs about 10% of what it costs to produce Lopez and draws 5 times the audience. Give me a break.
Couldn’t he hold out for Fox…is the question on everyone’s mind, causing many to feel as Sandy does, that Conan just fell off the face of the planet by moving to TBS. But this may work out for Coco.
First of all, Fox was his only network choice among the four mainstays. But the 11 PM timeslot is tricky on Fox, since that is where the local affiliates make a large chunk of their profits by running reruns of the Simpsons. Those locals would not be happy switching to the much more expensive Conan O’Brien show, particularly when it also got lower ratings than those Simpson repeats.
Second, George Lopez’ numbers in the absolute may not be high, but he did win the 30-and-under late night demographic. I know, big whoop, 30-and-unders don’t watch that type of tv, it is reserved for snoozing old farts, as Sandy notes above. However, Conan never appealed to snoozing old farts, which is reason #1 why Leno is back on the Tonight Show (Leno’s irritating warmed-over ingratiations play well to old women in Topeka). Thus, pairing with George Lopez makes sense for Conan playing to his strengths.
Third, by delaying the start a few extra months (to November), Conan gives the media a bit of extra space to blather themselves out about why in the world he wouldn’t go to Fox.
Its a big risk, because TBS sucks. However, a Fox move would have failed for the same reason the Tonight Show gig failed. I give the guy credit for at least trying something that, while crazy from an external standpoint, makes a bit of sense given where his strengths are.
As someone on Twitter pointed out yesterday, no matter how much you think you like Conan O’Brien now, you’ll hate him by the end of the baseball playoffs. With Conan’s launch date in November, and the playoffs in October, the promotion on TBS is going to be insane. I hope they at least make a large number of clever ads, instead of 2 or 3 clever ads that become something substantially less clever on the 845th viewing.
Good point about the playoffs – not sure if the Twitter guy went there, but the obvious example is Frank Caliendo as John Madden – very funny on Fox, but by the end of last year’s playoffs any mention of Turducken would make you instantly cringe.
Is anyone else annoyed by the “Very funny” and “We know drama” slogans for TBS and TNT? Or what’s the other one now, “Characters welcome”?
That Dr. House! What a character! Want to see more characters? Watch this station – we have the market cornered on characters/drama/funny!
If they ran those commercials for generic industries like cheese or pork in between the shows, I would probably quit television forever.