George Lopez used to have almost a million people watch his show on TBS every night. Then Conan came along and George was moved back an hour and he now averages a little under 400,000 people watching per episode. Funny enough that is the number of hookers he hopes to have sex with in the rest of his life. It is also the approximate number of times his ex-wife swears at him daily because she gave him her kidney while he was having sex with hookers.
The staffers at Conan are now wondering if they are next. What started out as a bunch of people watching Conan has now turned into less than used to watch George Lopez in the same time slot. Conan started with 2 million people and is down to a little less than 800,000 people per episode. Not a good sign. TBS probably figures they could throw some reruns of Raymond up on the screen and get half those numbers at about 5% of the cost. Conan needs to do something or get some big guest which can turn things around.
Jay Leno used to always lose to Dave, and then one night he happened to have Hugh Grant scheduled the night after he had been arrested for soliciting a hooker. Jay's numbers were mind boggling and he never lost to Letterman after that night. One guest at the right time or maybe he could shave his head. That could do it too.
I think the people that loved George Lopez did not love how he got a kidney from his wife and then dumped her. I also think that the reason Conan's ratings were so high initially had more to do with the public support he enjoyed after he got dogged by NBC(?) and his "kitsch" factor than him actually being funny.
ReplyDeleteMy 2 cents.
Was watching Joy Behar last night; she mentioned that it seems like the Conan/George Lopez situation is sort of similar to the Jay Leno/Conan one, in that they moved George's show up an hour to accommodate Conan. Except Conan left NBC when they tried to do that to him.
ReplyDeleteI also think the fact he's no longer on basic cable doesn't help things.
@Surfer
ReplyDeleteExcellent points.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sue Ellen.
ReplyDeleteThey won't be canceling Conan. The uproar would be RIDICULOUS -- plus, he brings in a LOT of merchandising revenue to TBS (anyone want a "Looks GOOOOOOOOOOOD" t-shirt?).
ReplyDeleteAs for George Lopez, I caught him a few times post-Conan, and it was just painful. The monologues weren't even close to being funny, and he didn't have a good rapport with his guests.
ReplyDeleteI used to really like George, but he's been going downhill in my book for a while now.
ReplyDeletePrince's performances on the show though were great and Prince even sat down for an interview with George. I know, what a shock, right? I think even George asked Prince "So, why are you doing my show?"
I've never been a Conan fan. My fella laughs his ass off at everything Conan says or does.
To each their own...
A few weeks ago I caught Conan and he just wasn't funny. The next morning I was reading one of those sites where they print the jokes of the late night guys and read a joke I had heard him tell and I laughed out loud. It's not his material - it's his delivery. Typical joke:
ReplyDelete"Why did the chicken cross the road?" looks right, looks left, twitches, repeats
"Yeah, yeah, why did the chicken cross the road?" laughs at himself, twitches, looks around aimlessly
"To get to the other side!" Twitches, claps hands, spins around, if he gets a big laugh, either does the nipple thing or the puppet thing (or both).
If he'd refine his delivery he'd be much better.
In all honesty, I usually don't watch after the initial monologue of ANY of the late night guys - just too late for me.
Never clicked with Conan, and thought his fight with Leno was ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteDidn't understand why you would criticize someone who is taking over your job, when the company is firing you. In the real world, you get hired to do a job, if you don't get the job done, the company fires you (unless of course you work for certain government sectors - i.e. politics). And hire someone to replace you.
Leno shouldn't have been replaced by Conan in the first place. The network caused a lot of havoc and loss with their bad decisions; a lot of other shows had suffered because of their musical-chair plays with late-night TV.
there is a huge difference between Leno/Conan and Conan/Lopez.
ReplyDeleteLeno just took what he could get and didn't care if Conan would lose his job as long as Jay got his back. They never spoke to each other as I understand.
Conan reached out to Lopez and asked if going before him was OK. At the time Lopez thought he would have a better lead in and completly was on board and a team player. Lopez gave up his time slot voluntarily, sadly turned out to be a bad move. Personally, I never found him very funny and I would rather watch Chelsea Handler goofing on celebs for a 1/2 hour vs. an hour of celebs glad handing themselves on Conan or G.Lo.
I am VERY happy to hear that happen to that NO TALENT HACK that is George Lopez...he was NEVER funny and how he got a late night talk show blows my mind!
ReplyDeleteRita - The network asked Leno to agree to a date, several years in the future, to retire and be replaced by Conan. What most people don't understand is that the network head asking Leno was Conan's college fraternity buddy. When the time came Leno had large ratings and the network head couldn't explain to his bosses why he was killing a huge ratings winner. Hence the offers to Leno to stay etc and the whole mess. As far as I'm concerned Conan and his network buddy deserve all the bad karma they get.
ReplyDeleteTry reading "The War for Late Night" by Bill Carter - makes it pretty obvious that while Conan & Leno both weren't angels, the real offender in this hot mess was NBC, especially Zuckerman. You think politics is dirty? (or is it politics are dirty?) Politics has nothing on network betrayals.
ReplyDeleteSusan and Dave, agree with both sides: bad network decisions were made, that ensued with a whole lot of trouble.
ReplyDeleteBut what I remember of this situation, is Leno was able to bargain a new tv show so he could keep working with his crew...
It doesn't matter at the end really. For I am one of those who did not get Conan's humor. It has always been the kind that makes me uncomfortable. To me, whether dark, or light, humor should take by surprise and make you laugh wholeheartedly. Not the case with Conan. From my point of view. Am pretty sure I find certain comics extra funny where others cannot stand their comedy.
The only winner from the Leno/Connan debate was Jimmy Fallon. He has made the leap from SNL to talk show host look easy. And he's a lot more funny without the scripted sketches.
ReplyDeleteTBS should move both of them up an hour so they're not competing again a gazillions talk shows, The Daily, and Chelsea Lately, and put their 10pm reruns on at 1 am. Problem solved. Can I have a network job?
ReplyDeleteRita - obviously a joke is in the eye of the beholder. Conan, Dave and Jay all have comedy talents but, since most jokes come from their writers, their value added tends to be in the telling (generally the more stand up experience the better). The real difference is the target audience. Jay inherited the "big tent" philosophy from Carson and consequently tends to be more middle of the road (or bland, depending on your opinion). Conan tends to identify himself as a trendy hipster, understood by the insiders of the CoCo cult, but making fun of everyone else. Dave tends to fall in the middle, appealing to the more sophisicated urban elements of Carson's audience but smart enough not to make (too much) fun of the middle.
ReplyDeleteits funny that most conan fans don't remember the force out of leno who owned late nite. nbc screwed up & regretted killing leno immediately..wgaf anyway, those talk show models of hour long
ReplyDeletelame mono, sh1t guests that just plug their latest commercial venture w/o saying anything & then the tired musical act, is over.
a short sweet no azz kissing chelsea type show is much better for todays audiences.
Dave - excellent analysis!
ReplyDeletePretty sure Conan has some sort of deal with TBS to keep him on the air for a while longer. I am one of the 800 000 that watch him every night.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Leno/Dave thing Leno was posting slightly higher numbers that Dave before Hugh Grant. Jay's show was reformatted in 93 and he was slowly gaining viewers all during 94. And of course O.J. helped Jay gain audiences during that time too. Remember those Dancing Itos? Of course There have been a number of times when Dave has beaten Big-jaw in the ratings over the years too. Dave's first week back after 9/11 for example.
Anyone interested should read both of Bill Carter's books about the late night wars or search Nikki Finke's website.
Leno will be gone before Conan. Half the biggest actors in the industry refuse to go on his show (Bruce Willis, Will Ferrell) yet they'll go on Dave and Conan's show.
Dave and Conan have the one thing in the industry Leno doesn't have or ever had - Respect.
Oh yeah, this post was originally about George Lopez. Uhhhh...never watched him.
Why big actors don't go on Leno's show? Not what it looked like last season... All big names still go on his show.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from what I've read so far, most stars feel more comfortable going on Leno's show, but obligated to do Dave's show as well. For Dave makes some people feel really uncomfortable. You might say Jay kisses ass, I say he does his job right and keeps late-night true to its form: fun, light, promotional.
Want to see a star squirm, watch Ms. Walters' interviews circa 2005.
Never been a big George Lopez fan. I do like Conan though, since he wrote for The Simpsons. I don't like Leno. Even with politics aside, I think how he treated Conan was pretty crappy.
ReplyDeleteAs long as Craig Ferguson stays on, I don't care.
I think George Lopez would have been cancelled eventually anyway, with or without Conan's move to TBS.
ReplyDeleteCount me in as another one of the 800,000 that watches Conan every night. I would be really sad if he wasn't on TV anymore. I just read an article that said a Turner network exec was happy with his numbers so I think he's safe for now.
You don't have to like Conan's humor. To each their own but that doesn't mean he sucks. :) XOXO