The Return of Coco

You've probably heard by now, but Conan O'Brien has found his new home and in a pretty big surprise, it's TBS that landed Coco, not Fox like many had speculated. When I first heard this, I wasn't really sure what to think. Obviously it's cable TV, not network TV, and it's not like TBS exactly has an established late night TV history (i.e. George Lopez... and that's it). But the more and more I thought about it, it actually makes a lot of sense and it might actually be the ideal situation for Conan.

Here's why: if Conan were to go to Fox, it was going to create a whole situation involving local Fox affiliates and the network having to do some major shifting and redesigning of their schedule. It just looked really messy. But at TBS, they can basically do whatever they want. They gave him a great time slot (11pm), which starts 35 minutes before Leno and Letterman, and he has total creative control. Plus, it's cable so Conan can probably get away with a lot more jokes than if he were on network TV.

Additionally, Conan's show will have one of the best lead-ins possible: syndicated shows. Let's consider this hypothetical situation: let's say you're, I don't know, a 23 year-old male who stays up fairly late, pays attention to current events through the New York Times website (...and Facebook updates), but pretty much only watches shows on TV that will entertain him, which generally means something like Flavor of Love over Anderson Cooper 360. Do you think this hypothetical person is going to watch an hour of his local news before a late night talk show, or an hour of old episodes of The Office? Yeah, it's pretty close, but I think I... I mean, he... would choose The Office.

The point is that Conan is set up to do very well at TBS. He's going to be promoted on two channels (TNT and TBS). Plus, consider that TNT has the NBA playoffs and TBS has the MLB playoffs. Basically, you won't be able to escape the Conan hype machine.

Also, I think a lot of credit goes to George Lopez for making this happen. Conan initially didn't want to go to TBS because it would push George Lopez's show back, and that brought memories of a similar situation not too long ago... But Lopez called Conan up and told him he was all for it. is Lopez a good guy? Yeah, for sure. But he's also really smart. If you could have the most anticipated show in recent memory lead into yours, wouldn't you do it too?

It's also worth noting that Lopez's show right now is getting like over a million viewers a night. Wow. Who knew? After getting over that initial shock, it's also a pretty good indicator that Conan is going to be huge. No offense to George Lopez, but if his late night show can get a million-plus, you have to think that Conan's show is going to be off the charts.

So hats off to TBS for snagging one of the biggest names in the comedy industry. There's only one thing left for him to do: realize that all those Tyler Perry shows aren't funny in the slightest and they need to get rid of them immediately. Seriously. They suck. Trash them now. Please.