On Wednesday TV station TBS gave the ax to George Lopez, host of late night show Lopez Tonight and on Wednesday night Conan O’Brien gave Lopez a sendoff after staffers determined they needed to address the firing (the last Lopez show airs on Thursday), with the hopes that it wouldn’t draw attention to their own fall in the ratings over the last season.
While Conan didn’t talk about the Lopez firing in his opening monologue, instead reminding fans that he has hosted 3,000 late night shows since starting Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 1993, he did say goodbye to Lopez during the show.
Conan noted after the first commercial break:
“Had it not been for George being so incredibly supportive of me I would not have come to TBS,” while he went on to add, “It makes me really sad that TBS and George could not work this out….so tonight all of our thoughts are with George and his staff and his crew.”
When asked if his show was in danger of cancellation Conan said only network executives have that answer, however his ratings are not as bad as Lopez’s who dropped from 910,000 to 543,000 then fell further in the last month to just 391,000 viewers.
Conan’s numbers in comparison dropped to 1 million viewers from the original 2 million viewers he witnessed when his show debuted. During the month Conan has averaged 709,000 viewers per episode.
While rumors will begin to circulate over the fate of Conan’s show, it’s important to note that his demographics with a younger audience are highly coveted and for the time being TBS appears to be in the funny man’s corner.
The final episode of Lope z Tonight will air on TBS tonight.
