Go Team Coco

[Ghoulish Delight]

I was certainly watching the Tonight Show more than ever with Conan at the helm (and by "more than ever" I mean "at all").

I think a large chunk of Conan's struggles were the result of a combination of the traditional drag of a poor lead in and the fact that it was specifically Leno that was providing that poor lead in. When Carson left and Leno took over there were lots of Carson fans that were not interested in seeing Leno...but they were also quite used to watching something at 11:30 on NBC in the form of a late show. So some portion of them watched anyway out of habit, which softened the inevitable drop off. Whereas with NBC slapping Leno on at 10PM, that segment that would have otherwise stuck around at 11:30 for whoever took it over were more likely to say, "screw it, I'm sticking with what I know" and just watch Leno at 10 instead.

So strip away the habitual late night watchers AND reduce the overall # of people watching the network at all, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Does it entirely account for it? Who knows, maybe he would have still failed even if given the best possible opportunity. But while success in a good situation isn't guaranteed, failure in a bad situation pretty much is, and that's what they gave him.