Posted on 10/20/2004 10:38:25 AM PDT by Cableguy
Struggling NBC-owned cable network CNBC is currently in talks to get second runs of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. CNBC wants to air Late Night a day after it airs on NBC, most likely at 10 pm, starting next month. Sources tell The Biz that the channel is just waiting for O'Brien to sign off on the deal.
Moving Late Night into prime time would likely mean the mercy killing of McEnroe, the train wreck of a talk show with former tennis star John McEnroe. Ratings for McEnroe have occasionally been too low for Nielsen to measure. CNBC will also have an opening at 7 pm when the Washington-based talk show Capital Report goes away, but we're betting on 10 pm.
Late Night repeats have been airing a few times a day on Comedy Central for the last couple of years, which, anecdotally at least, helped build a following for O'Brien among viewers who couldn't stay up for the NBC run at 12:30. O'Brien has since been named to succeed Jay Leno as the host of The Tonight Show in 2009.
The Comedy Central deal to rerun Late Night expired in September. That creates an opportunity for CNBC, which has long struggled to find a prime-time identity — and viewers — after a day of business news.
A CNBC spokeswoman wouldn't confirm or deny the Late Night deal, saying, "We talk to people all the time and we never comment on those discussions."
I only remember McEnroe from jokes in Mad magazine about how he wore a headband to keep what little brains he had from falling out his ears.
Good business move by NBC.. Re-runs of conan will easily pull a 0.5, and they cost nothing to produce (other than the original).
Gee! Ya don't say. I wonder why...
I haven't been able to stay tuned into his show for more than 60 seconds, really.
Did anyone over at CNBC really think that a blow-hard, ex-tennis player would make a good talk-show host? What's next... "Straight and Narrow" with Martina Navritalova?
McEnroe has a show?
I watch the Comedy Central shows every once in a while and Conan is very funny. This would be a great move for CNBC and would bury that awful show they have on now. What was CNBC thinking when they hired John McEnroe?
"anti-Bush John McEnroe"
Don't the Democrats ever get embarrassed by who's on their side? I mean, the terrorists are one thing, but McEnroe??
If they had smarts, and guts..they'd give Ann Coulter the show..turn her loose to do her thing...the ratings would go througt the roof...
Using some hack as a prop vehicle for a talk show? What could go wrong?
I actually tried to watch McEnroe's show once. I was not able to do it. It is unwatchable. It didn't even look like a show. It looked like a few people sitting around someone's living room playing party games. I still don't know what it is I actually saw.
"Boiling Water" has the distintion of keeping McEnroe from being the least watched show on cable.
dennis miller show doing any better?
we should support him, he's pro bush
I thought Tina Brown's was the smallest audience on cable. If it isn't, it should be. Good Lord, it is awful!
Mac's show was just dreadful. My family is bigger than his audience.
The only political statements I've ever heard McEnroe make were pretty conservative (on Letterman's show). Has he been a Bush basher on his show, or have I just missed some of the daily reports from the media re: another Bush-hating celebrity?
I doubt if Coulter would stoop to having a show on CNBC. She wants to be seen, and it wouldn't do the conservative movement any good to put her on either CNBC or MSNBC. She'd be better off doing a show in a locked closet. More people would watch.
McEnroe was a super tenis player who was a delight to watch, but whenever he opened his mouth he always showed a mean and nasty character.
Some athletes might make good TV personalities, but he's not one of them. Only an outfit such as CNBC, badly run by its driveling lefties, could imagine otherwise.
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