conan is going to be incredible for him. i mean he s enjoyed some press. he is starting this new late night talk show on tbs. but it s not getting the press that late night stars are getting. conan got when he left fox. now with conan coming in, there is going to be so much more attention not only on conan but on what george is doing afterwards. i mean it s a huge boom for the whole line. larry: don t you think fox was aggressive here? i think fox was being as gresive as they could be. they were just moving like so s. tbs came in and swiped him up. you have to remember the logistics of fox bringing conan was a lot and hard. he would only be on 60% of the of the country, because they already had sitcoms in that place. so his ratings probably wouldn t be as successful as they d like them to be in the beginning. larry: bill carter, isn t all this inside baseball? in other words, the family in des moines, they don t know what the ratings are. they just know what they like.
been the signature star of the people under 40, let s say and late night for the last ten years. that s a big coup for them. larry: tbs and tnt, their hits are best of all baseball, tbs gets the playoffs. that s right. and that will help conan, too. it will give him exposure. have you interviewed phil kent? tbs answers to him in the know man clay sure nomenclature. he is giving you information for the story? i spoke with steve koonan, head of turner entertainment. he met with conan personally and he also spoke to george lopez and said this is a good idea for you to move back an hour and george agreed. larry: so how big is it to you, lynette. is entertainment weekly going cover with this? absolutely. we try to go after the viewers that he tries to appeal to, younger demographic.
players. larry: well now he s part of our family, the time warner group. how s he going to do, do you think? larry, i missed that question. larry: i said he s now part of the time warner group making him a sister to our setup here at cnn. how do you think he s going to do? well, it s going to be interesting. because instead of competing against, you know, david letterman, he s not going to be competing really against john stewart and stephen he could bare who established themselves as the cable guys on late night. so it s more, you know, a very young crowd split up in a lot of different ways. that is conan s audience and the audience on comedy central. i expect him to do well. he probably won t have to worry about, you know, big numbers. i think he ll do a good, young audience. he ll be very free, creatively free to do what he wants to do without a lot of interference from, you know, what he used to have at the network. larry: we ll be back with
us from eugene, oregon. he s there to be around for conan s opening night. he opens tonight, right? that s right. this is his first night, larry, here in sunny eugene. just started to rain. larry: and how many how much time are you going to spend on this tour? you are doing a one-night coverage and then back to new york? i ll do this one. i ll probably do l.a. and then new york. but i thought i should come to the first one and see the scene and everything. larry: all right. you re always in on the know. you are surprised by this? i was surprised it happened. there was no glimmer or hint this was going on. frankly, i thought the fox thing was really the best and only option it seemed for conan to be competitive. but i think tbs came up with a very aggressive offer and fox was not really moving forward with the offer. so it happened really fast. but it does surprise me in a way. i didn t think he would jump to cable. i thought he would want to stay on network and be one of ne
fun. larry: and he has a half hour jump on me, leno and letterman. how is he going to do? i think he ll do well. he ll definitely get that younger dem graphic that, george lopez already achieves. i mean supposed larry: he has the best demographic. an average age 33. i don t think the broadcast networks view conan as a threat. it s been established who is the leader in late night. we already know who everybody watches. we know now that they re back to watching leno. and they like david letterman as number. two and then kimmel third. dispute a huge push that they gave for conan o brien, he wasn t able to recapture the leno ratings. i don t think they look at him as a threat. but he s up against no one. exactly. it s not about ratings for cable. it s about, you know, what type of audience you re going to get. he s going to get that younger audience. you have to remember, leno has great numbers. but his audience is getting