People overexaggerated how poorly he did. Honestly, it was still solid after the first 2 months when he got comfortable. Actually, i'd say he started to hit his stride after the whole concussion incident in september or october whatever it was. He was defintiely a bit confused on how to keep his same smart (but dumb stuff as well) and more crass "immature" humor at an 1130 timeslot with lots of advertisers, different audience and execs to pander to. It wasn't as good as his old Late Night show but definitely better than Leno who isn't a naturally funny guy and basically is a doormat for NBC to plug their crappy shows/movies. It's not even about the lead in but every talk show is shakey at first. Leno had miserable ratings for the first year or two. I think with time Conan would've found a better balance and figured out his new voice at 1130 and done it very well. He's an extremely well educated, intelligent and gifted comedy writer and comedy personality (ask anyone who has worked with him or watch some early simpsons dvds with commentaries and listen to the stories about him) so he'd figure it out. But expecting someone to come in and dominate leno immediately is kinda silly. Especially as late night talk shows are so splintered and nich now with every network and every culture having their own show now. Fallon is going after the under 20 crowd and hoping to keep them as they age, leno/letterman are older white people or the occasional star gazers when big guests are on, wanda sykes has something i think, george lopez, jimmy kimmel is doing well, and there are more. I think at a network like Fox he'll do really well. Their demographic is a bit less of the Matlock crowd like Leno/Letterman and also Fox does an exceptional job at advertising their brand and their stars. NBC didn't really do anything for Conan outside commercial or two. On fox you'll see conan probably get the whole "fox treatment". He'll probably be a guest judge on american idol one episode, have commercials during bit fox shows, get other little guest spots, and they'll talk him up big. Fox doest a pretty good job at that and CBS did an outstanding job with Letterman when he first started up 17 years ago. They marketed him as a star well back then and i assume fox will do the same unlike nbc who just hoped that conan would instantly become a star with the masses with no help
