Posted on 12/22/2011 7:02:22 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
TBS's pricey Conan O'Brien experiment is flopping—and is about to get even more expensive.
When the cable network hired Mr. O'Brien for more than $12 million per year in 2010, TBS executives hailed late night as its "next land of opportunity" and Mr. O'Brien as the "building block" to a network-wide revival.
In the nine months since "Conan"'s debut, TBS has canceled its only other late-night show, George Lopez's "Lopez Tonight," and viewership of "Conan" has tumbled, by about 60% since its high-profile debut last fall.
Despite Mr. O'Brien's shrinking audience, TBS is doubling down on the red-haired comedian, paying for costly programming in an attempt to protect its investment.
TBS airs mostly a mix of original sitcoms such as Tyler Perry's "House of Payne" and "Meet the Browns," sprinkled with reruns of hit comedies such as "Home Improvement" and "The Office."
The Time Warner Inc.-owned channel has seen its viewership among 18- to 49-year-olds fall 11% this past television season compared to the previous one—despite Mr. O'Brien's addition last fall. Viewership among those 18 to 34 years old fell by 10.8% over the same time period.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I’m glad to see Lopez got axed - he was never funny.
I am partial, however, to Triumph the Insult Comic Dog!
Conan the commie bites the big one! Bwahahahahahahaha!
Conan has come a long way since being locker stuffing bait in High School.
...just another in a long line of annoying yapping M*ssholes...
Yeah. For a network that’s famous for Green Acres, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillys, and Braves Baseball, you gotta wonder why they ever thought Lopez was was going to fly. I’m sure they got room over at Univision for him.
blame canada... blame canada.....
I hear that 88 shows were cancelled, some were planned to end though.
I’ve been a fan of Conan’s since his first season replacing Letterman on NBC and believe he got screwed royally by NBC. But the plain fact is that the writing on the TBS show isn’t that good and the show isn’t very funny anymore. Yeah, Lopez wasn’t very good either, but no one expected much from him. Quite frankly I’d rather tune in to Craig Ferguson or Jimmy Kimmel or even Fallon.
I’d rather watch re-runs of Gordon Ramsay reworking the White House kitchen.
I like Conan cvan’t stand his new show
How can this be? He was so confident of everything. He married two dudes on his show and more.
Conan is almost pitiful.
The methodology was flawed in 1950 and simply ridiculous today and persists only because advertiser group think won't even contemplate an alternative and likely undervalues ad time in their favor.
There’s no such thing as too long when it comes to avoiding network TV.
I once had a job working with a bunch of overgrown children who made a habit of acting like their late-night idols. Trying to coordinate my daily tasks with Conan O’Brien while telling Jon Stewart and Ms. Stephen Colbert to stop being perpetually sarcastic was an exercise in futility.
Quite frankly, I’d rather turn the tv off and read a good book.
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