As a fan, I am upset that NBC’s changes to The Tonight Show ended with Conan O’Brien leaving the network, and Jay Leno returning. I replaced my personal Facebook photo with the “Team Coco” picture.
That being said, NBC made the right move this time, with Jay Leno.
As I previously mentioned in my post about the success of CBS, television is a legacy business. In the world of time shifting through DVRs, Hulu and piracy, the most valuable TV viewers are those that do not follow these practices. Wow, Ted Koppel may have been right. TV is an ad supported medium, advertisers pay the networks for their commercial messages to be seen by viewers.
It is the older audiences who watch commercials at their regularly scheduled times, and not just the programming. CBS is the highest rated and most profitable TV network for this very reason. They program to get the highest overall audiences, and not just the 18-49 demo.
Jay Leno is a proven brand, having grown a huge audience in most of his 17 years on The Tonight Show, beating The Late Show with David Letterman in total viewers, if not ad revenue. If Conan O’Brien was given more time on The Tonight Show, would he have eventually garnered the market share of Leno? Perhaps, but not guaranteed.
Also, as much as The Jay Leno Show was a flop in primetime, Monday-Friday at 10pm, he got higher ratings than he ever did when he was WINNING at 11:30. I personally did not watch, but somebody was.
