TBS trounces network late night talk shows with its premiere of Conan! The gangly redhead with his fresh-from-my-live-tour beard drew 4.2 million viewers for his TBS premiere which was, yes, very funny. Even better, of that 4.2 million, 3.3 million were adults 18-49. By comparison, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno drew a total of 3.5 million viewers with a mere 950,000 in the 18-49 demographic. Meanwhile, The Late Show with David Letterman reached a total of 3.4 million, with 1.3 million in the 18-49 demo.
Conan also benefited George Lopez Tonight, which beat both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in total viewers and all demos
It will be interesting to see if Conan can maintain this audience – but even if there’s as much as a 50% drop in ratings [as happened in his second week on The Tonight Show], he will still be giving TBS a triple-digits ratings increase in the timeslot. If he holds his audience, it will be the biggest shake-up in late night ratings, ever – and one of the biggest in basic cable vs. networks.
Photo courtesy of TBS.