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from MediaFile:

Laugh graph: Conan and the ratings race

The debut of Conan on TBS won its time slot against more established late-night comedy shows. But can the former Tonight Show host keep up the momentum? Reuters is keeping daily track of how O'Brien performs against his rivals; tune in every day for an update.

Related stories: Conan O'Brien's new show draws fans, not critics Conan O'Brien returns to TV in downsized role "War for Late Night" lifts lid on NBC turmoil

Coco in, Charlie out, “Anarchy” ignored at Emmys!?

Revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold.

And Conan O’Brien must surely be licking his lips with glee at winning an Emmy nomination for his short-lived version of “The Tonight Show,”  six months after NBC  handed the late night talk program back to frenemy Jay Leno.

O’Brien’s nomination in the variety show category even drew an audible gasp from the group of bleary-eyed journalists and publicists gathered at the Television Academy for the dawn announcement on Thursday.

As one mischievous pundit speculated — how will NBC (which is airing the Emmys ceremony in August) handle a possible win by Team Coco and a potentially scathing acceptance speech on live on national TV by O’Brien…(Music please? Fade to commercial break?  — Talk about some real drama!)

Such was the glee over the bumper 19 nominations for “Glee”, that overlooked shows and actors barely got the time of day on Thursday. Except for Charlie Sheen, whose absence from the comedy actor nods was widely seen as a reflection on his ongoing court case on charges of pulling a knife on his wife and threatening to have her killed.  Not so funny.

The biggest of the other losers was regarded as motorcycle gang show “Sons of Anarchy” which has been tearing up a storm on FX in its third season, and making a star out of actress Katey Sagal all over again.

You can read here about the shows that did well in the nominations. But what happened to dramas  like “Treme”, the final season of “24″,  “Grey’s Anatomy” and other names that might been there but were left out in the cold?

Tina Fey hearts NBC

NBC has suffered terrible press of late from the forced departure of late-night host Conan O’Brien, but at the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday, the network got a big wet kiss from “30 Rock” star Tina Fey.

After taking the stage to claim her award for best actress in a TV comedy, Fey had nothing but good things to say about the network behind her show, even though “30 Rock” is itself no stranger to spoofing NBC.

“I just want to take a moment to say to everyone at NBC, we are very happy with everything and happy to be there,” Fey deadpanned, as the audience laughed.

It was more than just a joke, as the awards-laden “30 Rock” has in the past struggled to survive on NBC due to lackluster ratings. But in the wake of one of the biggest public relations disasters in the last-placed network’s history, during which O’Brien and other comedians lambasted NBC, Fey got some laughs for going the reverse route.

Last week, at the Golden Globe Awards, NBC fared much worse, even though the show was broadcast on that network, as Fey joked that the rain was “God crying for NBC” and host Ricky Gervais quipped, “Let’s get on with it (the show) before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno.”

Now that NBC has officially replaced O’Brien with Leno, and given O’Brien a $32.5 million payout, really laying into the network with a biting quip might have looked like kicking a dog, and the network escaped unharmed. This year’s SAG Awards were broadcast on cable networks TBS and TNT.

Backstage after winning her award, Fey was earnest and not quick to joke about NBC.

Late night gets political as Leno, O’Brien and Letterman look to the future

Conan O’Brien’s departure from NBC’s was ugly from the start, but now that it’s over, and Jay Leno is about to reclaim “The Tonight Show,” who has come out looking like the bad guy? This is important because if Leno and O’Brien end up competing against each other in the same time slot (with O’Brien on Fox or another network), how the public views each of them could affect their ratings. Leno himself has acknowledged he has been getting bad press as a result of the shakeup, with fellow talk show hosts David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Rosie O’Donnell accusing him of pushing out O’Brien. But judging by a poll of 65,000 respondents at celebrity website PopEater, the controversy doesn’t seem to have hurt Leno that much. Forty-four percent of respondents said they would watch Leno over O’Brien if the two were to go head-to-head in the 11:35 p.m. time slot, with only 33 percent opting for O’Brien. Leno enjoys the advantage of having reigned as the top-rated late night talk show host from 1995 until he gave up “The Tonight Show” in May 2009. After he left, David Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS climbed to the top of the heap. Can Leno reclaim some of those viewers from Letterman when he returns to “The Tonight Show”? Letterman has launched a nasty campaign against Leno, mocking him every chance he gets on his show. Meanwhile, Leno has tried to take the high road, calling O’Brien a “great guy” during his show Monday. But of late he has fired back at Letterman during his monologues. With Letterman “going negative,” and Leno having given what amounted to a speech on Monday with his side of the story, this late night war has turned into something like a political campaign. For his part, O’Brien has ravaged NBC during his monologues, and he has never returned Leno’s favor by also calling him a “great guy.” Despite the hipster “I’m with Coco” campaign that has emerged, especially online, in support of O’Brien, his $32.5 million payout may hurt his image. True, we are in the age of corporate executives getting away with million dollar bonuses after their own failures, and Conan has scored sympathy for securing money for his staff. But wouldn’t we all like to walk away with say, $30 million, after seven months of poor ratings, weak reviews and (to use one of O’Brien’s jokes) not even a new haircut? In a PopEater poll, only 28 percent of respondents said they feel sorry for O’Brien now that he has received his huge payout, and 38 percent said they never did. With none of the talk show hosts seeming to have a monopoly on public sympathy, they may want all want to work harder on their campaign skills, because this new age for the talk show arena looks to be as cut-throat as ever.

(Additional writing by Christine Kearney)

Top 5 late-night jokes about Conan and Jay

Conan debacle inspires comic digs galore

It has become a battle of who can win the most sharp-tongued digs.

Conan O’Brien’s statement released two days ago that he will not be bullied by NBC back into a later timeslot has sparked a competition over which late night host can squeeze in as many quick fire NBC slaps in their opening monologue as possible.

 On Wednesday night O’Brien was more combative in his comedic tone than the previous night, in a message directed to “the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. Unless Jay Leno wants to do it too.”

He also took a direct dig at executives talking about the strong audience “American Idol” receives at rival network Fox – where it is speculated O’Brien may eventually move to: “When they heard that, NBC executives said “That’s not true, there’s no such thing as an audience of 30 million people.”

 But David Letterman predictably has been able to be even more aggressive calling NBC executives “pinheads” and “nitwits” and “twits” after his own tumultuous relationship with the network in the early1990s following more than a decade with the network. Last night his nightly top ten was based on messages left on NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker’s voicemail and he also took potshots at Leno himself.

The jibes delighted the audiences and left others wondering how far can their zingers go? How long will NBC give the hosts ample fodder for laughs at their expense? Can Leno and NBC turn it around?

from DealZone:

Comcast the Barbarian?

Conan O'Brien could well be headed to Fox after making it clear to NBC that he will not go graciously into the later night. But a channel-changing question that is making the rounds has more to do with what the drama unfolding between O'Brien and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno says about NBC and its agreed joint venture with Comcast. If nothing else, the lack of replacement programming for the slot Leno is vacating, and the purported profitability NBC still enjoyed by having a cheaper, single-star variety show in a traditionally pricey prime-time slot, raise an obvious question -- why the rush?

John Hudson at the AtlanticWire does a nice job of collecting some thoughts on pressure that was probably building from Comcast, from angry affiliates who wanted Leno and his show's crummy ratings out of that vital pre-news slot, to improving PR.

"Though NBC Universal Chairman Jeff Gaspin said the Comcast deal has nothing to do with the decision, pundits say Gaspin has 'every incentive to show improvement' before his new bosses at Comcast takeover," Hudson says.

NBC said local affiliates had seen a 30 percent drop in audiences for their 11 p.m. news shows because of the weak lead-in from Leno. That would certainly have been alarming to Comcast, which knows a lot more about getting content into people's homes than it does about who is funnier, Conan or Leno.

Another reason Comcast may be the ultimate culprit here is change itself. Taking big, noisy, tough decisions before the deal with NBC gets its regulatory blessing means not having to take them when a new bunch of executives is taking charge of the remote control.

President Barack Obama’s stance on “The Tonight Show”

On Conan O’Brien’s second night hosting “The Tonight Show,” his coveted new assignment, received a nod from none other than President Barack Obama, who gave a tongue-in-cheek shout out to the pompadoured comedian.

It came in the form of an ironic answer to a joke question that NBC newsman  Brian Williams asked Obama during an interview on the eve of the president’s trip to the Middle East. O’Brien aired the exchange on “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday night, starting with Williams’ question.

“I couldn’t help but notice, your trip this week coincides with Conan O’Brien’s first week on the air,” Williams said to Obama in the video. ”Is it because of that or were there considerations perhaps that you almost canceled to stay and watch his first week as host of the ‘Tonight Show’?”

Obama countered in a deadpan tone.     

“This is something we’ve discussed several times in the Oval Office, how to manage this transition between Leno and Conan, and I think he’s up to the task,” Obama said. ”But I just want him to know that there’s not going to be any bailout coming from Washington if he screws it up.”

Obama appeared on “The Tonight Show” back in March when Jay Leno was hosting it, becoming the first sitting president on a late-night talk show as he discussed his economic plan for the recession, in a venue normally reserved for Hollywood stars pitching their latest film or TV projects.

Media writer Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune called the tactic “Bypass the Press,” a play on the name of the more staid news show “Meet the Press” where politicians normally try to sell their policies.

Conan slicks it up for “Tonight Show” debut

Conan O’Brien is famous for his geeky pompadour hair style and weird sketches, but on his Monday night debut as host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” the comedian looked as if he meant to tone down the more risky elements of his former show (“Late Night”) to win over audiences grown accustomed to watching the affable Jay Leno for 17 years.

The Masturbating Bear and  Triumph the Insult Comic Dog were absent from the show, after becoming burned into the memories of anyone who stayed up until 12:30 a.m. to watch O’Brien’s former show “Late Night” on NBC. Those two staples of the old show were true to its style of using cheap costumes and props to play up a double joke, the surface humor of one-liners and the underlying comedy of a major network show relying on cheesy production values. 

Instead, in his “Tonight Show” debut O’Brien relied on an endless stream of humor showing him as a fish-out-of-water transplant from New York landed in Los Angeles. There were jokes involving the Clippers and the Lakers basketball teams, the famed Hollywood sign and a tour of Universal Studios, a theme park attraction. Making fun of L.A. was a staple of Leno’s show, with his “Jaywalking” sketch that involved testing city residents’ often abysmally low knowledge of topical news and history, such as who was the first U.S. president. 

In his “Tonight Show” debut, O’Brien made fun of L.A. too, but most of his jokes spun back at himself. In a segment showing O’Brien at a Lakers game, instead of sitting up front with celebrity royalty Jack Nicholson, O’Brien was shown stuffing himself with popcorn in the arena’s last row.

“Late Show” regular Max Weinberg (who was the drummer for Bruce Springsteen) and his band joined O’Brien in his new gig, as did his former sidekick Andy Richter, who is now the show’s announcer. Oh, and comedian Will Ferrell was carried in on a litter before his guest segment.

It all seems to have worked, as O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” debut brought in the biggest Monday audience for the show in four years. It scored a 7.1 rating, which compares to a 4.0 for a typical “Tonight Show” episode.

In a snap judgment column, Mickey O’Connor of TV Guide wrote that “O’Brien has kept his mischievous, self-deprecating glee intact, but nothing about the show appeared to be too surreal or alienating for the timeslot’s existing, graying audience.”

Will it be au revoir, or adieu for Jay Leno fans?

                                                                                    It’s the end of an era in “beautiful downtown Burbank” this week as Jay Leno takes leave of “The Tonight Show” after 17 years as host — only to return to the same TV studio lot a few months later with another show that sounds a lot like the old one but at 10 pm instead of 11.35 pm.

So the question is not so much how much Leno will be missed, as how many of his fans will follow him to the earlier time slot, and how many new fans who couldn’t manage to keep their eyes open until midnight will now tune in for “The Jay Leno Show” before going to bed in the fall.

Once Leno gets his feet under the desk of his new set, NBC viewers will have three hours of jokes and celebrities pushing their latest book/movie/project/TV show five nights a week as Conan O’Brien and then Jimmy Fallon follow Jay. 

Is that too much funny business, even in the grimmest of recessionary times?  Will you choose the Leno monologue over “CSI”, “Fringe” and “Private Practice” — not just once but five nights a week in the fall? We’re curious. Is Jay ready for prime time?