The affiliates complained about the lead in, i.e. the crappy Leno comedy hour at 10.

Leno is boring and a smug a-hole. I hope he fails.

Except Leno's ratings were the same as the rating he was getting at 11:30, which lead the time slot. They were only bad in the context of a 10PM slot.

Given the situation they were in at the beginning of the year, and the way the contracts were written, NBC had very valid business reasons to make the move at the time they made it. The asshole thing they did happened long long before, by promising Conan a chance at the Tonight Show and then totally undercutting his odds of succeeding by caving to Jay Leno's whining, thus all but guaranteeing they'd put themselves in the position they found themselves in. I don't think the issue was as much not enough people watching Leno to lead into the news->Conan. I think the issue was too many people who were used to Leno just deciding to keep watching Leno and not give Conan a chance. Had the option to keep watching Leno not been there, Conan would have maintained some percentage of that audience and gotten a much better start than he did.

So yeah, by the numbers Leno was a clear better business investment at 11:30 than Conan...but only because NBC set it up so that result was all but inevitable. Had Johnny Carson been moved to 10 when Leno started hosting the Tonight Show, I guarantee Leno would have never done as well as he did.

Worth repeating.

It's how they said it. They literally said they wanted to forget the debacle and return to 2009 where Leno was #1 in late night. It was a douchebag thing to say/write and completely insulting to Conan, his fans, staff, anyone with half a brain.

Going only on what I am reading in this thread, I disagree. If I were a shareholder, I would AGREE with their statements (as presented here).

Overall, the whole situation was a debacle. I don't read into it that it was a put down of Conan and his staff - I read it that the whole situation (all parts of it) was a clusterf**k with no real winners

I'll rephrase. It was really really low klass. They could have just said that Leno was coming back tonight blah blah blah.

I am a shareholder, and I still think it's crap. Hopefully soon we will dump all this on Comcast. Good riddance.

Depending on how you look at the number Leno had either really good or really bad ratings last night.

The Good Interpretation
45% increase over Conan's average viewers
14% higher than Leno was getting on average in the first quarter last year
Nearly double Letterman's numbers for the night.

The Bad Interpreatation
56% lower than Conan's debut, and that's with the benefit of NBC's fairly strong numbers coming off the Olympics, and without the handicap that Conan had with his debut coming in what's considered "off" season.

I'm looking at that and thinking NBC execs are shaking in their boots. Massive media coverage of the situation, big network exposure with the Olympics, coming off of sweeps month...and all Leno can muster is a 14% bump over his average? It's likely to only be going down from here as the hype surrounding the controversy and premier fade.

I cannot WAIT until he goes down in flames. :evil:

Conan O'Brien Live

Very little detail other than the fact that Tickemaster has a listing for a Conan O'Brien show in Phoenix, AZ, April 30 at the Doge Theater. Tickets go on sale March 8 priced $36.50-$76.50.