Conan O’Brien’s new talk show debuted in TBS earlier this week and it was a ratings success. According to lostremote.com, Monday nights show pulled in 4,155,000 viewers overall — beating both Leno and Letterman — with 2,451,000 (over half!) between the ages of 18-34. In fact, TBS said the median viewer age was just 30 years old.
“Conan’s audience has been very vocal online, and he clearly made a smooth transition from Twitter to TBS,” said Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks.
So how did Conan O’Brien crush Leno and Letterman? One reason is Twitter. When Conan left NBC, he started a Twitter account, posting his first few public statements since leaving the network. It since exploded into a promotion machine and has 1.8 million followers. Leading up to the premier, O’Brien ran a Twitter campaign where fans got to vote on who his first guest should be.
O’Brien is after a much younger demographic than Leno or Letterman and it is really interesting to see how Team Coco has embraced social media as a way to reach out and connect with his target demographic. In addition to Twitter, Team Coco has also launched a blog, and been very active on Facebook and YouTube.
Leading up to the premiere, the show is also using Facebook (it created an event for the premiere) and YouTube (a big ad on the home page today that’s tied into American Express, and an “internet version” of the show, sponsored by Diet Coke), as well as an embeddable countdown widget:
The social media efforts obviously worked as the ratings for his premier we terrific. It will be interesting to watch Team Coco’s social media tactics in the coming months as he tries to win the ratings battle with the networks.
