NICHE APPEAL: The Wall Street Journal checks in on Conan O'Brien's ratings,
and they ain't so good:
The Time Warner Inc.-owned channel has seen its viewership among 18- to 49-year-olds fall 11% this past television season compared to the previous one—despite Mr. O'Brien's addition last fall. Viewership among those 18 to 34 years old fell by 10.8% over the same time period....
The audience for "Conan," has fallen from about 2.4 million in the show's first month on air in 2010 to roughly 958,000 people this past July, according to Nielsen Co. data.
Mr. O'Brien trails all major competitors on broadcast and cable during his 11 p.m. time slot. In certain weeks, he's also fallen behind newer faces such as Chelsea Handler.
In July, Mr. O'Brien averaged about 685,000 viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, placing him behind cable competitors such as Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart as well as broadcast rivals Jimmy Fallon, David Letterman and Jay Leno.
I hate to say I told you so -- okay, not really, because
I totally told you so: "The truth is that while we all generally like Conan O'Brien, we weren't watching Conan O'Brien until his tenure on The Tonight Show was threatened. He's a likable guy doing a genre of show that feels stodgy. And going head to head with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who already dominate the young (male) audience, I just don't see how O'Brien sustains an audience." Even Conan's boss seems flummoxed:
"We want TBS to be a leading comedy brand," Steve Koonin, president of Time Warner's Turner Entertainment Networks, which includes TBS, said in an interview. The company is still working on fleshing out its strategy. "How we get to that destination we don't have 100 percent mapped out today."
1. Conan shouldn't be doing a traditional talk show. He should be doing a 30 minute show focused on monologue and bits, with few, if any guests. He's got to fight off Leno and Kimmel for guests, and he's always going to get third pick. (That said, working famous people into the bits is a good thing--the Anne Hathaway rap thing went semi-viral.)
ReplyDelete2. The timeslot is wrong for what Conan's doing. As much as I maligned Leno at 10, there's an argument for Conan at 10 out of an hour of TBS' young male-targeted programming--Family Guy repeats get BIG numbers, and I expect Big Bang Theory will get big ratings. There is little or nothing young-male targetted on networks at 10. This gets him out of the way of Stewart/Colbert.
3. TBS lacks original programming and a brand, though using Conan to try and start one isn't a bad idea. Conan got screwed by the programming issue--Fox couldn't clear him, Comedy Central already has a late night block (though Conan after Colbert would have been an interesting call), and the basic cable net with the best programming fit for him was likely USA, which is an NBC company.
I think Matt's (1) is dead-on. I don't know if I'm similar to anybody else, but people watch TDS and CR because they're short, focused, and funny. They write the hell out of those shows. The jokes are not isolated yuks tossed out serially; they are woven into slightly longer essays that build a bit. And I usually skip the guests. So I can check into one of those shows before going to sleep and get about 15-18 minutes of concentrated funny packaged into a cogent narrative. Conan is funny, but he would be an awful lot funnier without guests, without banter, and without that dumb monologue format that takes 10 minutes to deliver five old timey jokes. That dude wrote for the Simpsons. You can't tell me that he wouldn't make a potent half-hour of concentrated absurdism.
ReplyDeleteI barely have time to watch any TV these days...I used to watch Conan all the time tho. (Late Nite era) I caught a few episodes on streaming last month and got some good laughs, but I peter out at the guests part. I guess I don't care about guests unless Tom Hanks is going to get splashed by a whale.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Conan ever was writer's strike Conan. I still remember him going around the building just interviewing random people, like the staff doctor. :D
Conan spinning his wedding ring was one of my favorite recurring gags during that dark era.
ReplyDeleteJust a random thought about those ratings; I thought about it, and I have no idea what channel number TBS is on my system. I could find comparable ones like USA and FX with no problem, but I had to go into the guide to dig up where it is in the lineup.
ReplyDeleteTBS' other problem is that they're trying to be two wildly divergent things at different timeslots. Early in the evening, it's a lot of Tyler Perry sitcoms, which draw respectable numbers, and then they go after young men with Family Guy and Conan. I think both can work, but not at the same time on the same network. Two hours of "House of Payne" into Conan isn't a good leadin even if it draws good ratings.
ReplyDeleteAgree, with Isaac, in that I agree with Matt's (1), but with the caveat that there shouldn't be a monologue. Bill Carter's book talks about how Conan has never been comfortable doing a monologue because he didn't come from the stand-up circuit like Jay and Dave. Bits, often pre-taped, sometimes with guest stars, should be the basis of this 30-minute comedy show.
ReplyDeleteI love Conan and watched regularly when he was on NBC at 12:30 and then 11:30. I would still be watching if they left him on The Tonight Show. Now that he's over on TBS I have to admit I tend to forget he's on -- due in large part to the rest of the night's programming. If they do a Big Bang Theory lead-in I'll be much more likely to tune in for Conan. At the very least I'll probably remember to DVR it more often.
ReplyDeleteAnd I wish they ran promos on the networks, as that's often the reason I remember to tune in for/DVR Letterman or Craig Ferguson (who I also love -- possibly more than Conan).
Agree that Conan's best stuff was during the writers' strike. I wish there were a way to incorporate more of that sort of comedy into the show on a regular basis.
I agree with the idea that Conan can and should break out of the talk show format, but a lot of these ideas sound a lot like what Craig Ferguson has been doing (start the show with something other than a monologue, have no guests, have just one guest for the whole show, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI think Conan should break out of the box and do what makes him funny. Dump the monologue first. He was interesting during the writers strike and also when he went to Finland, when he goes streetwalking etc. Create your own niche Conan like Ferguson did...
ReplyDelete