UPDATE: Yahoo Board OKs $1.1B Deal To Acquire Tumblr … 
Cannes: Sony Classics Wins Stateside Rights To Asghar … 
‘Fast & Furious 6′ Breaks Records In … 
Specialty Box Office: ‘Frances Ha’ Triumphs As … 
‘Saturday Night Live’ Season Finale Posts … 
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $164.5M Global: Lower … 
Cannes: Backup Media, Memento Bring Heat To Fest Helmer Jim … 
Cannes: Sundance Selects Acquires Dardenne Brothers’ … 
Cannes: Wrekin Hill Acquires U.S. On Gabriele … 
Bill Hader’s ‘SNL’ Stefon Farewell: Video 
Cannes: The Weinstein Co. Books ‘Suite … 
BBC Confirms ‘Doctor Who’ Season 8 
Finally, Cannes Dealing! Radius-TWC Nabs Director’s … 
Hammond On Cannes: Wet Fest’s Official Competition … 
‘Vampire Academy’ Adds ‘Modern … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Shark Tank’ Finale Up, … 
Cannes: Worldview Options Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn … 
UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
‘Mike & Molly’ Creator Mark Roberts To … 
Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts Set For … 
Hammond On Cannes: Weinstein Brings Out Stars For 2013 … 
A new trailer is up for Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, the documentary that chronicled Conan’s exile from NBC’s Tonight Show. He hit the road with a 32-city music and comedy show to work out the angst of losing his dream job in unceremonious fashion. While most people who pocket upwards of $30 million to leave a job they held less than eight months would consider it a dream, for O’Brien is was a nightmare. The Rodman Flender-directed film, well received during its SXSW debut, will be released by Abramorama on June 24. After all the drama that went into Conan’s exit, is Conan better off after refusing NBC’s request that he move his show back to midnight to make room for Jay Leno, and choosing TBS over Fox? Nobody much talks about him since he stepped into the cable universe at TBS.
Loading ...
Was there a reason that he didn’t go to fox, were they just not able or willing to work with him? Its sad that he is on tbs.
I think the problem was getting the affiliates on board. Fox doesn’t have late night or even 10PM national programming, so they were likely facing the same problems NBC was facing with newscasts that were declining in ratings thanks to Leno’s fail of a 10PM show.
Conan is irrelevant to late night at TBS. If he’s happy doing the kind of show he wants (though not much seems to have changed from the traditional format), then fine, but it’s crazy that he wasn’t able to translate all the news and hype into more than a .5 in the demos on a nightly basis, cable or not. Maybe he was best suited to 12:30 all along.
Conan who?? Why would you leave NBC for TBS?? (Dont say he was treated unfairly!) His rating stunk.
Conan’s ratings were decent, but not great. Just like Leno’s, when he took over from Carson. The difference here was that Carson had the decency to keep his mouth shut. Had he told ANYONE, “Well… if they ASK me, I’ll come back.” Leno would’ve been toast! That’s precisely what Leno did to Conan.
I took my parents to see a taping in 2000 & left thinking far less of Leno than I ever thought possible. When the announcement was made that Conan was taking over, I was overjoyed. Conan came to the Tonite Show, restoring it to something watchable after years of too safe, obvious & unfunny twaddle. When Conan was taken off, I pretty much stopped watching NBC, but that last night of Conan’s Tonite Show was the funniest thing in years & better television than the entire Leno run, combined.
Leno didn’t want to leave, he submarined Conan to get the job back, and when he got it, his ratings were less than Conan’s. I’d heard he was going to leave at the end of the season and I hope that’s true. I won’t miss him at all.
Nice attempt at revisionist history, but not true. Conan’s ratings were not “decent” – he lost 45% of the Tonight Show audience within three months of taking over (this was before Leno’s 10:00 pm show began). Contrast that with Leno, who lost around 10% of Carson’s audience when he took over.
We saw taping of Conan Tonight Show #8, I think. I remember thinking, “the set is too big and old fashioned, he’s completely uncomfortable, and there’s no soul to this.” Conan on Tonight never felt right. The audience sensed it. And now, just looking at Leno kinda turns my stomach.
nobody much talks about any of the late night talk shows like leno and letterman either.
Thank you! I was just going to post that. People talk about Conan as much as they talk about Jay or even Dave.
Can media outlets like this please spare us the snark and personal commentary? We get it. You love the network and are cable snobs.
He should have played the game until someone with the new people that took over NBC came along and kicked Jay to the curb. I am sure they would have done that to save money. They are even going to program at 10 pm again. They know Zucker and Co. screwed it up and would have made it right with Conan. Unfortunately, he is the loser, though a very well paid loser. I wish I could “lose” like that. I like Conan. I hope his movie does well.
Actually, in the book THE WAR FOR LATE NIGHT, it was revealed that Jay’s contract GUARANTEED that he would be on the air, 5 nights a week. There would be no “kicking him to the curb” without violating his contract and triggering lawsuits that probably would have cost more anyway. Zucker and Co. still screw it up by agreeing to such a stupid deal. But in the end, getting rid of Conan was cheaper than getting rid of Leno. That’s what it boiled down to.
And Conan stupidly didn’t have a clause in his contract guaranteeing that he’d be on the air at 11:35pm – it just said that he’d be host of “The Tonight Show,” with no mention of time slot.
Truthfully, it was a ridiculous proposition in the first place to take leno out — yeah, you are number one, like so far ahead of the competition but we wanna give the show over to conan — Yes, that makes perfect sense. Zucker creates this whole mess and leno’s ratings are lower, conan is nowhere to be found and all because of one person’s idea. Conan should have take the offer then to move and he should have made the correct choice to move to a network like Fox.
I understand Conan leaving NBC — not only was he preserving the Tonight Show Legacy (which, to a future generation, means nothing, but to him, means everything, and he didn’t want to be “that guy” who ruined/changed it), but Conan was completely d*cked over by NBC, and it just wasn’t right. He wasn’t treated right, and in his gut and heart it was time to go.
But as another poster mentioned, none of the Late Night guys get coverage anymore; in fact, no one talks about them or watches them unless something juicy or newsworthy happens. This isn’t the Johnny Carson age where you can simply say, “You see Carson last night?” and everyone did. No, for the most part no one watches these shows unless something cool went down on them, and then we find viral clips of that moment or interview or portion the next day on the wonderful world wide web (or just wait for you guys here at Deadline to post it).
Find me one person who watches Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, Conan, Fallon religiously from beginning to end every night, and I’ll give you $100.00…
So. Where’s my hundred dollars?
Any of them, or all of them? Because I’m pretty sure that every single one of those hosts have a large fanbase that watch their shows daily. I can tell you that I seldom miss Conan, and try to catch parts of Kimmel and Fallon most nights. Go a step further and add Stewart and Colbert to that list and you’re going to be out a fair sum of money my friend.
I think I speak for the majority of Americans when I say to Conan, “Quit your bitchin’, you big baby!”
I think I speak for a majority of comedy fans who say to people like you – “If you don’t like Conan – why do you even spend a modicum of time bitching about him bitching? Who cares?”
what the fuck are you talking about? where in this entire post do you see anything about conan still bitching? this is a trailer for a documentary filmed over the course of LAST summer (so almost a year ago) when the late night war was still an open wound; and now it’s a finished product and ready to sell. this is not a representation of what is currently happening you dumb lug. think before you speak, it might help you get somewhere in life.
I don’t think you speak for all americans but if you do, I would say that is an abrupt shift in thinking. Conan’s not complaining anyways right now is he?
Conan had the ability to shake up the late night talk show world, and instead he is just doing the exact same show on a new network. I don’t know how he is content doing monologue-sketch-interviews-performer year after year after year.
@Flyover Have you ever been mistreated at a job and complained about it? Yeah that’s what I thought, so shut the fuck up.
Mr. 8, You didn’t include Ferguson in your list.
“Find me one person who watches Leno, Letterman, Kimmel, Conan, Fallon religiously from beginning to end every night, and I’ll give you $100.00…”
Clever. Saved yourself a lot of dough. Ferguson’s fans are the most loyal in TV-ville. We are legion. I can honestly say I myself haven’t missed a single minute of the show in years. You can find many, many more like me.
Why CBS doesn’t promote Ferguson’s genius is a mystery. Rumor has it that they don’t want to hurt Dave’s feelings.
Meanwhile, the mighty warm beverage that was Team Coco has become the cold brown ring in the bottom of the cup.
Spot on with Ferguson! His is a clever mix of the most inspired humor disguising itself as an “old hat talk show” to confuse the boomers.
Craig is insanely popular when you take relevant metrics like streaming views, trending topics, residuals, and YTD ad revenue. It still amazes me that people still cling to the Neilson ratings – a system that grows more antiquated and flawed with each passing year.
Coco = ratings Nono.
To me, it seems as if Conan’s show is about the same as his shows have always been – a lot of ho-hum stuff, but a few minutes every week that are really strange and wonderful.
But the problem with him doing the show is that I think that he’s a way smarter, darker, Iron Man character guy in real life than he is on the air. If you Google him a little, you realize he has the kind of family history that you’d put in the bible for a main character in an action movie pilot. My sense while watching the show is that, OK, with all the budget issues and rushing around and sadness about the departure from NBC, there’s still some TV art there, but why can’t I watch the video of Conan flying around in the robot suit fighting aliens?
And, OK, that’s not actually what he does in his spare time, but why can’t I at least find out what David Kissinger’s dad really does at home in his spare time? And why can’t I see Conan’s dad showing what horrifying plagues are lurking on our doorknobs?
I don’t think ‘majority’ means what you think it means. It’s like saying: oh and Conan is murdering cat’s and whatnot.
Whatever dude. I am sure you know what you are talking about.
Not.
No Here In Flyover – no you do not.
I think Conan realized he could not work with those guys anymore so why stick around? He also seems happier on TBS just doing what he wants to do. Cable vs network does not really matter anymore so why not be where you are treated better. A good lesson for professionals in any field.