Conan O’Brien Gives NBC What They Always Wanted: Ratings

Maybe this was the point the whole time: NBC manufactures a fake controversy about wanting Jay Leno back at 11:30pm and moving Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show an hour back, then after a few weeks of NBC-bashing ratings gold (timed perfectly to coincide with the Olympics), they say nevermind and everything goes back as it was. No? No.

Because the overnight ratings from last night’s Tonight Show are in and they are huge.

The Tonight Show averaged a 1.7 in the 18-49 demographic, based on Nielsen’s 25 people meter local markets. David Letterman‘s Late Show was nearly doubled, average a .9. That was more than 40% higher than Conan’s Monday average of 1.2.

TheWrap.com’s Josef Adalian writes about the Jay Leno ratings:

By contrast, Tuesday’s “The Jay Leno Show” was down about 10 percent from last Tuesday. A lower lead-in from an “American Idol” impacted “Biggest Loser” played a role– but it’s worth noting CBS’s “The Good Wife” seemed to benefit from the gazillion “Idol” viewers looking for something to watch after the Fox show wrapped.

The final numbers won’t be official until next week, but what this shows is that if last night really was Conan’s final show, or this week is his final week, he’s likely to be going out on top.

While the mess made at NBC late night is not good for business, controversy certainly is.

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