CoCo to Basic Cable
Seems TBS has out-foxed Fox to woo Conan O’Brien and his late-night comedy show to their Time-Warner owned TBS. The deal, as announced today will allow CoCo to own the rights to his show (ala David Letterman) and grants him a 4 day work week, ala Cable’s Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, and George Lopez. Lopez’s show will be bumped to midnight, but according to The Wrap’s Josef Adalian, it was George himself who called Conan to talk up the “8 Figure Deal”.
This is a big blow to Fox, but given that no deal had even been brought up to Conan and his people. And what talk there was of a deal, didn’t speak about owning production rights, as well as possible restrictions for affiliates happy with their Seinfeld, Simpsons, and Office reruns.
So, is CoCo happy? “In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing
live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable,” O’Brien said. “My plan is
working perfectly.” So said the Boston-born pale skinned late-night virtuoso. Look for the new Conan O’Brien show in November.
I knew Fox News was run by idiots but I didn't think Fox was. Talking with friends about this after Conan was fired we all assumed Fox would be where he ended up as all they aired at 11pm were reruns. He wasn't going to get 11:30pm on ABC due to Nightline. I figured cable wouldn't be in the running as, and I said this to my friends, "Who watches George Lopez on TBS?"
George has a decent demographic. And this is a bold move by Turner. With his owning Comedy Central and Cartoon Network…. he's basically trying to OWN 18-34 males from 10 PM on.
Ted Turner owns Cartoon Network? When did that happen?