Conan killed the competition with his debut on TBS. He received 4.2 million viewers, easily beating all his competition: Colbert (1 million), Stewart (1.3 million), Letterman (3.4 million), and even Leno (3.5 million) in the ratings.
Conan’s ratings will probably drop below his network competitors, which have a greater reach, but considering John Stewart’s highest rating ever was 3.5 million and that was with a candidate Obama boost, it looks like Conan will be the new King of (cable) Late Night!
Especially if he delivers more shows like this. It had everything: a chubby sidekick, a masturbating bear, even a big skit, in which NBC unsuccessfully tries to make sure Conan never works in this town again, a la the Godfather (video left).
But it wasn’t all NBC bashing. “A lots has happen since I went off the air. And I wanted to cover it all in one joke. Just in one joke,” said Conan. “Yeah then I realized that’s like trying to keep an Icelandic volcano from wearing Lady Gaga’s meat dress while a trapped Chilean miner cleans up the BP oil spill… comma, Brett Favre’s penis.”
