Conan's Real Late-Night Foe Isn't Jay or Dave -- It's Jon Stewart
By Dylan Stableford From The Wrap
Published: November 07, 2010 @ 5:14 pm
Last week, when Conan O’Brien made a surprise, pre-launch appearance on “Lopez Tonight,” George Lopez greeted him saying, "welcome to basic cable."
It was a warm welcome -- something Jay Leno and NBC failed to give O’Brien when they forced him out of the “Tonight Show” chair just seven months in.
But as O’Brien makes his historic late-night leap -- or fall -- from broadcast to cable (with a lower budget to match) one person who might not be so welcoming is Jon Stewart.
Why? Because the “Daily Show” now faces something it didn’t have before: competition.
“’Conan’ absolutely presents a threat for Stewart,” Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media, told TheWrap. “Until now, ‘The Daily Show’ has had to compete with local news and syndicated sitcoms.”
Ed here:
Conan starts tonight on TBS. And I don't give a shit. To tell you the truth I gave up late night a long time ago. Just not worth staying up for or taping.
Letterman will always be a bully boy asshole (which he undoubtedly was in high school and college) though he remains the funniest of the three; Leno was very, very funny when he was on the old Letterman show on NBC but since then he's a gagster and nothing more and I doubt he's The Everyman he pretends to be, a berserker in his own way; and I was never crazy about O'Brien, much less so now that since he's been playing the Wronged Person in the entire Jeff Zucker fuck up. It's hard to cry for somebody who'll collect eighteen or nineteen mil out of the thirty five or whatever NBC gave him.
I still like Stewart though I think the "importance" the media has bestowed on him is showing in his performances more and more. I've actually come to prefer Colbert because a) he's funnier and b) he's actually nastier on pols than Stewart.
I wonder what Mylie Cyrus makes of all this.
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Well, Ed, for Cyrus's take, you could hope to see it on the other 11p ET series that will be stacked up against THE DAILY SHOW and CONAN and have at least slightly overlapping audiences...CHELSEA LATELY on E!, MO'NIQUE on BET, and JOY BEHAR repeats on "Headline News" (and either CHARLIE ROSE or TAVIS SMILEY on most PBS stations that don't opt for BBC WORLD NEWS or NEWSLINE from Japan or JOURNAL from Germany)...and then the Letterman and Leno shows, and Colbert (and NIGHTLINE on ABC), go head to head with the latter half hour of O'Brien (and Behar and Mo'nique) at 11:30p. I suspect the ratings will all be redistributed a bit, and none of it matters that much, except to them and, I guess, ratings fans. As someone in the industry, I'll be paying peripheral attention.
Well, the commercial broadcast network shows actually start at 11:35p ET/PT. And all but CONAN were already in place some months back.
I can't watch any of the network late night shows. Just a place for people to push their wares. A giant infomercial.
Caught the last few minutes of CONAN, which reminded me of how much funnier a performer Andy Richter is, and the first couple of minutes of GEORGE LOPEZ, doing what he can to not come off as annoyed. But those shows will be desk and chair affairs just like the four biggest networks' (including PBS and its duo).
I can't stay up that late. Mylie? She scares me. I may be getting old.
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