Despite the fact that Conan's show has fallen off in the ratings quite notably in the year after his show debuted in November 2010, it looks like TBS sees signs of life, and has rewarded him with a two-year extension for the show. As THR points out, despite the fact that his show averaged 2.4 million viewers in its first month, that number has declined to an average 1.1 million viewers over the past month and a half; that's still an improvement of almost 30% over late 2011, though, so the show is making up ground it lost since its debut.
Conan is still well behind most network late-night offerings, as well as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but TBS feels pretty strongly about Conan's ability to drive viewership on the web and through social media, for whatever that's worth. They've spent heavily on promotions for his show, and also spent a lot of money on Two And A Half Men reruns to precede it (up to two million dollars per episode), so they're definitely committed to the Conan O'Brien experience. Theoretically they'll know more about how long-term they want to go with it by the time the end of this next contract rolls around.
Are you still watching Conan? I honestly don't think I have seen any episodes of it since the premiere, but that's mostly because I'm often doing the next morning's Screened work at 11 PM. I get most of my exposure to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report through Comedy Central's website clips, but I haven't yet found a compelling reason to tune into Conan, as my late-night viewing proclivities probably peaked in high school with David Letterman. I have a hard enough time tuning in every week for a show, let alone every night.
I love Conan and I don't really watch it. I don't watch any late night TV outside of clips here and there anymore. I used to record Conan so I could watch the opening, skits and any interviews that interested me but it was so easy to fall behind and get a huge backload of episodes that I gave up. I'll always be rooting for him though.
Oh yeah. Conan's still on, isn't he?
Ditto for me. I love the guy and go through stints where I watch it a few nights a week for a month then don't watch it for two months. But if the TVs on late at night, its on Conan. So I suppose I'm the ultimate fair weather fan, which is the boat most young-ish people are in. Unfortunately.
Craig Ferguson and Conan are really the only late night shows I watch with any semblance of regularity. Colbert Report far less but I catch him when possible. Not everyone is up late at night and not everyone is compelled to DVR the shows.
I think Conan is still a steady presence and will continue to be, he's just in a tough spot concerning his place in the TV channels, really so that works a bit against him. Glad they're keeping him around and I hope to God NBC may reconsider their error in booting him and staying with no talent Leno but that will probably never happen.
Didn't they just spend a ton of cash for reruns of The Big Bang Theory for the exact same purpose?
These kinda shows work much better when only on once a week, better guests and material instead of trying to produce content on a daily basis. Conan is great but now the kinda show i'd watch regularly.
I've seen some clips of his show online but I don't have cable/satellite so I never get the chance to watch his show. But if I did have cable I'm sure I wouldn't be watching this.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love Conan's show!
...isn't that right, Cactus Chef Playing "We Didn't Start the Fire" on the Flute?
Nope, I loved conan's other shows, but this new incarnation just doesn't hit as often with its sketches, humor wise. Plus all those ad-segments really made me uncomfortable watching it.
Call me crazy, but is the demographic that's watching Two and a half Men really the same demographic that watches Conan?
And while its nice they have full episodes of Conan on the TBS website, they really need to get it onto hulu or an equivalent services.
I pretty much watch Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Conan back to back to back on a nightly basis.
Between this and the Community news this is a good week for shows that have dedicated fans but low ratings.
Ratings mean nothing. I don't understand why studios are still standing behind an absolutely archaic method of gauging viewers. I wonder how many viewers Conan would have if you counted all the ONLINE viewings of his show. I'm one of many people who only watch his show via the web.
I DVR Conan every night, but it's a rare episode that I watch front-to-end. Which is normal for most talk shows, because
sometimesoftenalmost all the time I couldn't care less about the guests. His comedy bits are probably the best around though, and there's barely a night when Andy doesn't somehow steal the show.Rorie, if you decide to drop in on Conan, try on a Monday for the Fan Corrections segment he does post-monologue. That's usually a highlight.
I try and catch the show online when I have time. It's still really funny!
I'm glad to see that, even if his ratings aren't great, he still gets to do a show.
Goody, I love the show. Sometimes I'll skip one or more guests (okay, quite often I'll do that), but the fact that the show is stupid as hell and they embrace it 100% makes it great.
Conan is pretty funny even without writers (which is why his remote bits are actually my favorite), but I honestly think he needs and should've switched up his show format when he started at TBS. The late night talk show format is kind of slow, bland, and stale these days because it's about monologue, skit, guest, guest, music. It's great for people who put it on before bed as they're winding down the day and just want some easy laid-back comfort TV. The way to keep it edgy is to infuse character and subtle commentary during bits and interviews (which is what TDS and TCR do), but you can tell that Conan's style is to keep it traditional along all the talk show greats. He likes interviews to be structured (he still looks down at his blue cards during interviews to stay on point because of his writing background. He does it when the guest is talking. Lose them already or don't crutch on them so much! You've been a host for almost 20 years!) and also doesn't want to be too political, so you basically lose most of the venues for you to be creative and talked-about (and thus, watched).