Conan O’Brien Still Ahead in Ratings

After taking over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno on June 1st, Conan O’Brien continues to lead in the ratings, proving that his advantage over rivals like David Letterman, was not the result of curious viewers tuning in for Conan’s first week.

According to Variety, Conan won the ratings race for his first 13 nights in the 18-49 demographic and averaged 2.013 million viewers.  Compared the the 1.126 million who tuned in to Letterman, the margin of victory is the largest NBC has seen in the five-plus years since the frame of the Friends finale in May 2004.

However, Letterm did enjoy some major boosts from his interviews with Howard Stern, Julia Roberts and that huge feud with Alaskan governor, Sarah Palin.

I do think, though, that in the long-run, Conan will end up taking some of Letterman’s younger viewers since his kind of humor is more appealing to that age group.

NBC Photo: Mitchell Haaseth