And the Winner of the 'Tonight Show' Debacle Is...
NEW YORK (
) -- On Jan. 22, Conan O'Brien finished his abbreviated run on
The Tonight Show
with his biggest audience turnout ever.
O'Brien averaged 5.3 million viewers in his final week, handily beating chief rival, David Letterman, who could only manage 3.9 million viewers.
The Tonight Show
also averaged ratings of 2.4 among viewers aged 18 to 49 in its final week, exceeding the kick-off week when O'Brien took over while Letterman fell to a 0.9 rating. O'Brien's final night drew a whopping 10.3 million viewers who tuned in to watch the late night comedian sign-off.
O'Brien left
GE's
(GE) - Get Report
NBC with a
severance package of $45 million
for himself and his staff, even though he was only on the show for 11 months. With O'Brien's departure, Jay Leno will return as host of
The Tonight Show
.
But you already knew all of that. You also presumably knew -- unless you were trapped underneath something heavy for the last month -- that Leno's own weeknight show,
The Jay Leno Show
, was canceled due to poor ratings and complaints from NBC's TV affiliates about the audience being delivered to their key 11 p.m. local news slot. And that NBC now plans to fill the void left by the cancellation of
The Jay Leno Show
with new scripted programming. And that the upcoming Winter Olympics will air on NBC and give the network a chance to promote its new lineup for prime-time weeknights. And that Leno will return to host
The Tonight Show
starting on March 1st.
What you presumably
don't
know -- because there is no legitimate way to know it just yet -- is who, ultimately, ended up benefiting most from the whole sordid little fiasco?
Rumors have surfaced that Fox, owned by
News Corp.
(NWSA) - Get Report
, is interested in hiring Conan O'Brien and giving him a new talk show. If such a move were to a occur, this would reunite Conan with the network that gave him one of his first breaks in writing for
The Simpsons
. So Fox might be a winner.
CBS's
(CBS) - Get Report
David Letterman, meanwhile, strongly benefited from the scandal.
Tonight Show
ratings slid after O'Brien picked up the helm, and Letterman claimed the #1 spot in the time slot.
NBC's move last fall to install O'Brien as the new host of
The Tonight Show
fulfilled a promise made years ago for him to succeed Leno. The gamble to placate Leno by giving him his own new show -- and then his old one back -- has clearly cost the company and angered its TV affiliates, but it's arguably turned out well for Leno (if one can ignore the damage to his reputation).
Readers of
TheStreet
, who do you think has won the most (or lost the least) from this debacle? Or is this one fight in which everyone loses?
Take our poll below to learn the consensus of TheStreet -- and feel free to leave a comment about your feelings toward the whole sordid affair.
-- Reported by Andrea Tse in New York
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>> Conan O'Brien, NBC Reach Accord
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