Conan O’Brien drew 4.2 million viewers to his new 11 p.m. cable talk show last night, according to TBS figures. Conan earned a 2.8 rating among Nielsen’s 56 metered markets. That means an average minute of Conan was watched by 2.8 percent of the homes in those markets. Conan nabbed 3.3 million viewers who were in the important 18-49 demo, and the projected median age for its viewers was a youthful 30.
George Lopez’ Lopez Tonight, which aired after Conan, earned a 1.1 rating.
Why can’t you just tell us how many people watched?
Because that information hasn’t been released yet.
Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. The show sucked. It was the same old tired NBC jokes. If you want real laughs, watch Jon Stewart. If you want stale jokes from 9 months ago, watch Conan.
Jon Stewart is getting a bit stale himself. Segment one…Show Fox News saying something biased, then show montage of clips of Fox News being hypocrital over period of five years. He does this basically every night. Not to say I don’t chuckle at it, but lets take a chill on the Stewart love fest.
Yeah, I was real excited for the first episode but there was nothing new! The set is very plain compared to George Lopez’s who comes on afterwards. Conan also had very little dialog during the first show. I though he was going to come back and blow it out of the water. Instead his guests did more than he did. Seeing Conan play guitar with a live band was cool, but this is basically how he ended his last show with NBC by playing free bird. To me it’s like this. If you are going to make a point of being free and leave. Don’t come back with the same show.
That would be about 3.25 million viewers, according to Bloomberg.
If it works out to about 3-3.5 million, that’s pretty low given all the hype and supposed “huge” fan base he has.
That’s actually fairly sizable, considering how much of his young audience are just going to watch the full episodes on TBS.com. By way of comparison, that’s higher than either Leno or Letterman, and Colbert and the Daily show do about 1.5-1.1 ratings. And they are very popular. A cable TV program needs a much smaller audience to be profitable than broadcast, if Conan is regularly drawing an audience remotely near the late night crowd, this is a huge win for him and TBS.
Sounds like Conan beat Tired Jay and the other talkers last night. Way to go, Coco!
The number ended up being around 4.2 million viewers total, with 3.3 million in the 18-49 demo, which is ridiculously high. But, “…”, don’t fool yourself into thinking that 3-3.5 million would’ve been a disappointment. It wouldn’t have been.
THAT IS NOT LOW IN TERMS OF LATE NIGHT RATINGS, JAY AND LENO AVERAGED 1.2 MILLION LAST MONTH AND THAT IS FAR BELOW WHAT CONAN DREW IN WHICH IS PRETTY DAMN GOOD.
You’re not the only one! That was amusing.
Just because he has a huge fanbase doesn’t mean that a certain portion or those people are ones with nielson boxes and access to cable television.
The real numbers will matter after tonight. It was VERY boring! I, for one, will only tune in as a sleeping aid.
Thank you Impulse, that’s the kind of information I was looking for when I clicked on this “story”. Yay Conan!
Because that information isn’t available yet.
And how do his numbers compare to Leon and Letterman. THAT’S the real story here. Why wouldn’t they report that??
It is the real story I agree but it wouldn’t be a fair comparison because he’s on cable. What does the Daily Show get daily I wonder?
Conan’s numbers will fall over the next month. He was expected to open with his largest numbers since everyone was wondering how his show would be. Even Leno when moved to ten opened with 18 million. I’m betting within about a month Conan will settle to about 1 million viewers.
Comparing Conan’s first night numbers to either Leno or Letterman wouldn’t be fair either because people tuned into Conan out of curiosity. You have to wait a few weeks to see what his real numbers will end up being every night to start comparing them all.
Yeah, I agree Bebe, I would like to know how Leon did too. I LOVE Leon.
Don’t worry about Leon, Leon is a professional.
Totally agree – that’s why I clicked on the story. How did he compare to Leno, especially!?? And even his old numbers on NBC?
@Wottadoosh: you just made me giggle out loud. Surely, I can’t be the only one who caught your reference?!!
No, I caught it too — very funny!
This means it probably will get something around a 1.5 in the 18-49 demo (though Conan probably skews younger than most shows, so slightly higher than a 1.5 wouldn’t surprise me).
If he beats Leno and Letterman in the demo, from TBS, with a much lower cost of production, that would be an astonishing victory. If Conan’s average audience age is 30, then what’s Jay’s?
Just glad he’s back!
Once the initial hype dies down, Jon Stewart will start wrecking him in the ratings.
They are both funny guys. There’s room for both at 11pm.
especially if you have a dvr.
Conan hasn’t been funny since 1995.
Oh! You mean about the same time your opinion was relevant?
Snap!
stay pressed fattie
Only in the demographic of “people-who-need-fake-news-anchors-to-tell-them-how-to-think”. Oh, and only then in an election month. Maybe.
Conan out beats all the late night talk shows! He’s so damn funny, we’re just happy he’s back!
stewart is a hack
troll
Glad to have you back Conan and Andy!
I would have watched but I can’t afford even basic cable.
I didn’t even think about the Daily Show! He’s definitely not going to have better material than Stewart. Though, having Richter with him helps!
Stewart and Conan are two completely different types of talk shows! Yes, both are comedic, but Stewart’s skews political and Conan’s skews more entertainment/pop culture
Fortunately the Daily Show and Colbert are rerun all the time.
Wow! All the hype and build up and he pulls a 2.8? That was going to be the highest rated show he did. Good Luck with that.
You realize that’s strong ratings for a basic cable show, right? Granted we’ll have to see how it holds up longterm but right now he beat Leno and Letterman for the night. TBS had expectations for it to be in the 1.0 range. 0.7 would have been satisfactory. It exceeded expectations. Good for Conan!
Well you can’t really judge by the ratings yet since he was up against that Monday night football game that went down to the wire.
Why all the hate people? Just be happy he’s back. The guy got royally screwed by NBC and Leno, I’m just happy someone picked him up to give him the respect he’s due. I think he handled the whole situation in a very classy yet funny way. As far as ratings, I DVR the show, so does that count? And yes, Jon Stewert is funny but in a different way than Conan, I can’t compare the two.
Did you already forget Conan did the same thing to George Lopez? Conan’s the biggest hypocrite.
Papi you obviously don’t read much.
Yeah, soooo the same thing. Lopez agreed to move after 4 months of being on the air at all. Compared to 16 years at the same network – oh yeah, totally the same thing.
Lopez got 1.4 million viewers last night, his biggest audience ever. I highly doubt he’s complaining.
Lopez was the person who told Conan to push his show back! And it worked (for the first episode). Both got some pretty great ratings for basic cable.
Screwed by NBC… paid not to work. Yeah, my heart bleeds for him. That’s showbiz, folks. He’s a big boy and he can, obviously, handle the “screwed” situation he was put in.
If being royally screwed means getting $45 million and a mandatory Summer without work, where do I sign up?
OK – he has a smaller studio audience, that’s good. Looking for any sign of humor…
As always, without Andy, he’s nothing.
Agreed. Seth Rogen is hilarious, but in a chill dude hanging out saying funny stuff kind of way — not a show-man or storyteller by any stretch of the imagination. Tom Hanks will be one to remember.
Oops. Hit “reply” to wrong post. I don’t agree that “he’s nothing without Andy”. When he was awarded the Tonight Show, Andy had been off doing his own thing for a few years and Conan was hilarious as ever. Still, his presence ups the laughs quite a bit.
yeah maybe tonight with Tom Hanks he’ll do better. That’s what I want to see
Yeah, I love Conan, but his guests last night were super boring.
Yeah glad he’s back!! His true fans will always watch!!!!