Well, that didn’t take long. There will be lots of “I’m With Coco” and David Letterman supporters that will say “It was expected…”, “Everyone was just curious about the switch…”, “Jay has all those Olympians on the show…”
Whatever.
I write this not as a Jay Leno fan (far from it) – but as a practical person who looks at the numbers. As I said when there was a debate over whether NBC should keep Conan or Jay… of all the late night hosts on all the networks, Jay Leno is simply the one that more people want to watch. I’m not talking about “quality” or “educated” people here. I’m talking about more PEOPLE.
In his first night back in the 11:35pm time slot, Jay Leno destroyed the competition. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno got a 5.7/14 share; David Letterman (3.0/8 share); Nightline/Jimmy Kimmell Live (1.8/6 share). Tonight, Jay has Sarah Palin and Shaun White on the show. Who do you think will win?
I think Conan may want to avoid the direct competition and forget about Fox. I’m sure Fox executives are thinking the same thing today.
[Note to Jeff Zucker: These results are not because of your brilliance, they are in spite of your ignorance. The Olympics will lose over $200 million for your network and you won’t make that up with “The Marriage Ref” or “Parenthood” ratings. You will be fired.]
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
Love him or hate him, there is a reason Jay Leno has been #1 and will soon be #1 again in the late night wars.
It’s even possible that by week two most people will have forgotten there ever was a