Conan is moving to a weekly format on TBS
- by Leland Aguilar
- in Entertaiment
- — Jan 6, 2017
Big changes are coming for Conan O'Brien's late-night cable talk show, "Conan". The comedian recently traveled to do stand up in Cuba and South Korea, which apparently boosted the series' Nielsen TV ratings.
According to TheWrap, Turner CEO John Martin disclosed the network's plans at CES on Wednesday. Those trips have proved a boon both creatively and in TV ratings.
Going forward, Conan will follow a similar format to TBS's other late-night property, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, which now a new episode once a week.
But since his Tonight Show tenure, O'Brien has worked to craft a different kind of show at TBS, and in recent years has really come into his own with regular shows set in interesting locales.
There is no word on when the switch over to a weekly format is scheduled to occur.
Of course, the real mission here is getting Conan to step away from the direct competition he faces, and gets thumped by in the ratings, on a nightly basis with The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
Even Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live" just bested O'Brien by that metric. "Conan" averaged 356,000 demo viewers in Q4; "The Daily Show" brought in 616,000. And it makes one wonder if he's happier with this much smaller place at the table, or if he wished he would have just followed Leno at midnight.
Representatives for "Conan" and TBS had no comment. He previously hosted "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on NBC from 1993 to 2009, as well as "The Tonight Show" for a little over six months from 2009-2010. A spokesman for Turner did not return calls or emails seeking response.
