Conan O’Brien and the pros and cons of finding a niche
Conan O’Brien’s 60 Minutes interview from May 2nd drew a lot of attention because it was his first appearance since leaving The Tonight Show, because of what he said about Jay Leno, and maybe because despite his repeated assertions that he’s “fine,” he seemed to be brimming with resentment. But what stuck out for me was this statement from Conan:
I hope people still find me — comedically absurd and ridiculous.
I noticed it because of the slight hesitation before “comedically absurd and ridiculous.” I think he was about to say “funny,” but he caught himself and replaced it with something much more interesting. By positioning himself as comedically absurd instead of funny, Conan ingeniously differentiates himself from Leno and millions of other comedians. It works because comparing Conan to Leno really is apples to oranges, and the same tactic can be employed in any domain. Don’t want to compete with BMW on performance? Make it about luxury. Make it about safety. Make it about fun.
One benefit of such strategic focus is customer loyalty, which couldn’t be demonstrated more convincingly than it is by Team Coco, a label applied to fans that have remained fiercely loyal to Conan through the NBC debacle. Conversely, a sacrifice Conan has to make with his comedic absurdity is that he will never appeal to the masses—he will never be the mainstream option. This is why I don’t think he ever could’ve pulled in ratings on The Tonight Show to match Leno’s, no matter how long he’d been there.
In a system where success is measured by numbers of viewers rather than viewer engagement and enjoyment, Conan can’t come out on top. Based on those performance metrics, NBC prefers a million viewers tuned into Leno, half watching and thinking it’s watchable, to 500,000 fans tuned into Conan and loving it. Change the performance metrics and maybe Conan fares better. Regardless, I think he’ll be happier and funnier—sorry, more comedically absurd—on TBS. Regardless, I’m with Coco.
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Related article in Time Newsfeed the other day. “The most touching moment was Conan talking about the realization that it doesn’t matter how many people watch your TV show or how long it airs — what matters most is the connection to fans.”