Conan, the Anti Host
Conan O'brien
Conan O’Brien’s popularity was based on one important ingredient; he wasn’t a run of the mill host. He was ‘different,’ goofy, and original and his time slot during his impressive ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ run had a lot do with that.
The show started at 12:37AM and appealed to a segment of the population that was still awake (and stoned), expected weirdness, originality, and shock value (college kids, out of work folks, ‘weirdos’, and creatives).
After his move to replace the Doritoes guy (Leno), his time slot went back almost an hour. His show now started at 11:34 instead and with that comes a whole different market and a whole different sensibility. His main audience drastically changed. He had to adapt his schtick to Middle America in a sense and, to me, he lost that seeming ‘anti-Carson-Doritoes Guy’ image. As a result, his show became stale and Andy Richter’s presence (the Ed McMahon formula) did not really help at all!
O’brien was no longer Conan the ‘anti-host’ (Ala anti-hero). Self effacing and depracating humor no longer played a major role in his monologues. It did back in the day consistently as I recall. So did his complaints about his low budget etc. That was what appealed to me originally and NBC as well.
As a result of the ratings failure NBC decided to try to capture some of that ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ magic and move the show to a 12:05 slot. Too late NBC. That did not work and this marriage with O’brien was doomed to fail from the start. My 2 cents.
Tags: Conan O'Brien, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, NBC, ratings, target Audience, The Tonight Show, The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien