Conan on Cable

That Conan O’Brien has signed on to do a new talk show should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. This moment was inevitably going to happen. What is surprising about the news is where he ended up.

I was one of those people who thought he would go to Fox and give the guy who booted him from the Tonight Show–Jay Leno–a run for his money. Nope, he’s decided to do a show on TBS instead.

There’s tons of info on other blogs about this story, so I’ll stick with the key points. O’Brien will host a show four nights a week (Monday through Thursday) at 11 p.m. ET, while the show currently holding that time slot, “Lopez Tonight” starring George Lopez, will move to midnight.

Sound familiar? It’s what NBC wanted to do to O’Brien, move “Tonight” back to midnight and let Jay, who had been struggling in prime time, have the slot he has long dominated back. O’Brien walked away from NBC after saying “no.”

But here’s what makes the situation at TBS different. According to the NYT, O’Brien refused to do the same thing to Lopez and only agreed to come on board when encouraged by Lopez to do so. And judging by Lopez’s verified Twitter account, he is thrilled to have O’Brien as his lead-in.

I think it’s a good move on Conan’s part. Critics were skeptical that he would pan out at Fox, where some affiliates were reluctant to give that 11 p.m. hour they make money off with “Seinfeld” reruns to a network talk show.

Second, TV by the Numbers, citing numbers from Nielsen Media Research, says TBS is the second most-watched cable network in primetime among adults 18-34 and 18-49 for the first three months of 2010, behind NBC Universal-owned USA, but ahead of MTV, ESPN and Comedy Central.

Speaking of Comedy Central, this does leave fans of Conan and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert at a crossroads, since Conan will now be going head-to-head with Stewart’s “Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” But honestly, it’s the same situation they’d be facing had Conan gone to Fox.

Not to mention you have DVR and Internet streaming that will allow viewers to still catch all three. TBS has a channel on YouTube, Conan episodes would likely be placed there the morning after broadcast, meaning even people who aren’t near a cable box can still catch Coco just as long as they have an Internet connection.

Going to cable will allow Conan to do the kind of show that put him on the map to begin with. He’ll be able to get away with more because cable channels aren’t held to the stingy FCC standards that broadcast networks are. It’s just too bad the Masturbating Bear won’t be able to make that trip with Conan to TBS.

What’s better is that since his show won’t air until November, you can bet that TBS will use the Major League Baseball playoff games it will air a few weeks earlier to promote Conan. To use a baseball analogy, I think TBS has hit a grand slam by signing Conan O’Brien.