The Tonight Show lead-in is exactly the same as it always was, local news. ER hadn't been a ratings leader since the 90s and even if that's true it was only on once a week.krellen said:Placing all the blame on Conan is colossally unfair. Not only was Conan's lead-in worse than Leno's (being Leno, rather than ER), but he didn't even have a year to build his own following from what viewers were left after Leno's failure.
Conan took over the Tonight Show in June. Tonight Show ratings were already way down before Jay showed up in September. But please, tell me more about how fewer people watched Conan than Jay because Jay's so unfunny. Cuz it makes so much sense. Maybe Leno can blame his lead-ins too. Maybe a bad Simpsons rerun at 7pm just doomed the whole night.
Jay's not crushing at 10pm. That's a given. But no talk show succeeds at 10pm, so it was an impossible challenge for him. Had Conan maintained or grown the Tonight Show audience then I'd be all for kicking Jay and letting that be the end. But this claim that people won't watch a guy they like because someone they don't like came on an hour and a half earlier ... that's supposed to make sense?