It's not just that his new talk show Conan is attracting a huge audience -- more than 4.1 million for its first night -- but they're young as well. And advertisers are willing to pay a premium to reach these viewers because they're so difficult to find.
TBS, the cable network owned by Time Warner, announced Monday that it will create a new late-night show for Conan O'Brien, who left The Tonight Show in January after NBC told him it was giving the 11:30 p.m. time slot back to Jay Leno.
NBC did serious harm to Jay Leno's public image when it tossed out its late-night succession plan in January. The number of people who view Leno unfavorably rose dramatically in the weeks after the network said it was moving him from 10 p.m. back to 11:30, displacing Conan O'Brien.
During Congressional testimony Thursday, top executives from Comcast and NBC Universal pledged to restore the luster of the beleaguered Peacock Network, which has suffered through low ratings, a dearth of hit shows, and most recently, the Leno-Conan debacle.
Our long national nightmare is over: Conan O'Brien and NBC are parting ways in peace, if not amity. In a deal expected to be announced officially later Thursday, the network will pay the Tonight Show host $32 million to walk away.
The sniping among late night comedians has intensified over the last few days, as millionaire entertainers jostle for position in the great Jay Leno - Conan O'Brien conflict. A lot of fingers are pointing at one side or another, but the real blame lies with the NBC executive who started the whole thing.
NBC Universal chairman Jeff Zucker is spending $40 million of General Electric's money to get rid of Conan O'Brien. NBC was contractually bound to give O'Brien $40 million if it canceled the show -- but it also buys Zucker a non-disparagement clause from the late-night comic.
NBC Universal's chairman failed to anticipate that Jay Leno wouldn't want to take early retirement, or how audiences would turn him off in prime time. Now he's preparing to demote O'Brien to coddle Leno, whose best days are clearly behind him.
NBC has got quite a mountain to climb after the disastrous Jay Leno Show experiment. But getting consumers to give a second chance to a product they've stopped using is one of the biggest challenges in marketing.
NBC executives appear ready to move Jay Leno back to late night TV. The Leno disaster, which will cost the network tens of millions of dollars, was avoidable, and will likely be discussed in business schools for decades to come.
