This week Turner Broadcasting will be out selling Conan O'Brien with a new pitch: Forget the TV ratings, look at his online popularity.
Turner has reason to focus attention on Mr. O'Brien's pull in other media. When "Conan" launched last November after NBC cut him loose and returned Jay Leno to its marquee late-night spot, it represented the latest front in the late-night wars-and an aggressive step for any cable network. Turner, which is sinking a reported $10 million-plus annually into a crowded field, moved boldly to claim what it thought was its due: higher-than-expected ad rates that it insisted should be on par with what marketers paid for NBC's "Tonight" and CBS's "Late Show."
Yet after seeing mammoth initial ratings due to the NBC controversy, Mr. O'Brien's TV viewership has begun to settle. It is worth noting that, regardless of this decreased TV viewership, O'Brien's show lures hard-to-reach young adults via online and social media, not only on TV. "TV is only a fraction of it," claimed Linda Yaccarino, exec VP-chief operating officer. The average time spent viewing "Conan" content on his website, TeamCoco.com, has increased 30% since the show launched, and the average time spent per visitor on the site has increased 103%, according to Turner. On Facebook Mr. O'Brien has 1.7 million "friends," according to the network-more, as it turns out, than his average TV viewership in his first year on the air so far.
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