I watched my last Tonight Show on Friday night. I have been a huge fan of the show for 30 years and am one of Jay Leno's biggest fans. Jay (and Johnny Carson before him) have been there for me through countless nights of insomnia. So, you can bet I'll be watching at 10 when Leno returns in September.
While I never say never, I can't see myself ever purposely tuning in to watch Conan. I've given him many opportunities over the years to entertain me and he just never has. He reminds me of a 15-year-old class clown.... goofy, sophomoric and just plain boring most of the time. My husband couldn't disagree more. He thinks Conan is hilarious. (Other than this serious flaw, Ralph's quite a good guy, just for the record.)
Two years ago when my company, Edelman, did an extensive study on boomers, one of the things we discovered was that The Tonight Show with Jay Leno was the one TV show that was in the media "bull's eye" for both boomer men and women. Typically, boomer women favor local newspapers and lifestyle kinds of programs, while boomer men turn to national news and radio sports talk. But Leno has brought them together for an hour five nights a week. His appeal is probably because he's such a likeable comic whose monologues have always incorporated the news of the day, while his interviews have included pop culture icons.
A few years ago, I got to experience firsthand what a nice guy Leno truly is. I was in California for the National Speakers Association Convention when some friends and I decided to attend a Tonight Show taping. His guest that night was Kirstie Alley, who, at the time, was starring in "Fat Actress." When the show was over, Leno agreed to pose for pictures with us. He even chatted for a few minutes and thanked us for coming.
A year or so later, when Ralph and I were in Las Vegas for a weekend, Leno was headlining at a Casino. We bought tickets to see him and I was blown away by his ability to do two hours of nonstop standup that was so clean and funny, I'd have been willing to take my mother. (The next night, btw, we saw George Carlin, another favorite, who was just hysterical, but certainly not clean.)
Will boomers follow Leno to the 10:00 hour? I think the shift to prime time may actually affect the way boomers watch TV. Expect more of us to turn to our DVRs to catch the few shows we do make it a point to watch and time-shift our way through them all. How about you? Will Leno's shift to 10:00 make any difference in how you watch TV?
