Conan O’Brien officially has a new home for his late night antics on TBS starting November 2011. His hour long, yet-to-be-titled, talk show will air in the 11 p.m. ET/PT time slot from Monday’s to Thursday’s. George Lopez’s show, ‘Lopez Tonight‘ which is in it’s first season, will be pushed back from it’s current time slot to the midnight hour, rounding out TBS’s newly established two hours of late-night talk.
Many late night viewers may recall an all too familiar situation where Jay Leno and O’Brien battled for the 11:35 p.m. time slot on NBC. O’Brien, who was concerned about the NBC late night revamp, didn’t want to go back on his promise to his former show’s new host, Jimmy Fallon, host of ‘Late Night‘.
Continue reading to find out where O’Brien’s new show will film.
According to MediaDecoder.com, O’Brien’s manager, Gavin Polone, said he went to Mr. O’Brien to inform him of the TBS offer. “Conan said, ‘We’re not putting ourselves in the position of shoving somebody out of his show.’ ” The next phone call came from Mr. Lopez himself. “I can’t think of anything better than doing my show with Conan as my lead-in,” Lopez said. “It’s the beginning of a new era in late-night comedy.“
While negotiations with Fox network didn’t quite fall through, talks were slow. Since they don’t currently have a late night presence, Fox and affiliates had already paid for and advertised their syndicated episodes of ‘The Simpsons‘, as well as ‘The Office‘ and ‘Family Guy‘ which also air on TBS. Another decision maker for O’Brien came when TBS promised that his show will reach every home in the nation instantly, as opposed to Fox’s three year plan. TBS also promised “the biggest promotional campaign in television history” using some of TBS’s most popular properties, including this year’s NBA playoffs and the Major League Baseball playoffs, according to MediaDecoder.com.
Time Warner recently released a press release stating that “Conan has been the comedic voice for a generation. TBS already has a huge audience of young comedy lovers, and Conan’s show will give these fans even more reasons to watch our network,” said Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks. “For decades, late-night TV has been dominated by broadcast television. Now, with a young audience and a growing late-night lineup, TBS is set to be the choice of comedy fans for years to come.“
‘Lopez Tonight‘ currently has a very diverse audience and holds the title of youngest viewers of late night, with a median age of 34 which works well with O’Brien’s fans, often referred to as Team CoCo. The line up promises to be ‘Very Funny’, as TBS’s tag line suggests.
What’s O’Brien’s response to all of this? “In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.” In a recent tweet, O’Brien jokes “The good news: I will be doing a show on TBS starting in November! The bad news: I’ll be playing Rudy on the all new Cosby Show.“
O’Brien’s new late night show will continue to produce in Los Angeles, which makes sense since his crew picked up and moved from NYC not too long ago when he switched from ‘Late Night’ to the ‘Tonight Show‘ in June 2009.
O’Brien is currently on his nationwide stand-up comedy tour, “Legally Prohibited from being Funny on TV“. The 30 city tour began in Eugene, Co on April 12th and will end in Atlanta, GA on June 14th.
