jaggedsac - http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/11/04/how-did-nbc-do-at-10pm-weekdays-before-the-jay-leno-show/32641
Kasz-
Great Dramas? These are the shows that come on before TJLS:
Heroes
Biggest Loser
Law and Order: SVU
30 Rock
Dateline NBC
Their highest rated show is SVU and it's topping out at 10 million viewers
Heroes, 30 Rock have poor ratings - they be lucky if they can get 7.5 million viewers
biggest loser no is better than SVU at all and I won't continue for Dateline. What you're saying is that Jay Leno's ratings suck but is getting good ratings from all of the terrific lead ins? Here's the fact: NBC is picking Leno over O'Brien because THEY know that Leno would attract more viewers than O'Brien.
Also, Conan is not winning the 18-49 demographic. He is tying with Dave, which is why NBC is willing to do this. Thirdly, I know Jay Leno couldn't beat Dave when he was starting but Dave was an already established host. Jay was not. What's Conan excuse? He's been hosting Late Night for 17 years. Is everyone hoping that Conan will get another Hugh Grant? Lightning striking twice? I also like to see numbers before you start describing Jay's ratings as "sucked". Not to mention that if everyone is saying give Conan more time, then why isn't Leno given more time?
Also, again - It was Conan O'Brien who didn't wait for Jay to willfully retire and forced him out. It's also O'Brien who refused to compromise by moving the show back half an hour.
Here's a paragraph from the New York times-
And yet, after waiting all these years for “The Tonight Show” to be his, O’Brien was surprised when Zucker told him in December that Leno would be back on the network at 10 p.m. “My first reaction was to calculate my self-interest,” O’Brien said a month later, over dinner at a restaurant near his apartment on the Upper West Side. “It took me about 45 minutes of, ‘Really?’ I think, realistically, that Jay will be doing the same show he’s doing now. I knew that there was this thing that was starting to brew that poor Jay was being pushed out by Conan. Jay was clearly becoming unhappy, and it had the makings of a situation that would make me unhappy. I like Jay. I don’t want to be an unpleasant chapter in his life. Or he in mine.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24Conan-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1
