Conan gives NBC the bird

The who mess with Conan O'Brien and NBC has been something I've been following very closely mainly because I think Conan is the best late night show out of anyone and I think that he's been getting the shaft royally. However, the way he's been handling things shows just how classy this guy is and what good a sense of humor he has.

Friday night's final Conan episode was something like the Super Bowl of Late Night. It was possibly the best hour of television I've watched as he just did what he's always done - made us laugh. He handled NBC with class even when they did not, and for that I'll be a loyal viewer on whatever channel he lands on.

As for Leno and NBC? Forget it. I use to think Leno was funny but I'm not watching that guy out of protest. Mark my word... that chin is not showing up on my television.

I just looked up the ratings for Conan's show and it appears that a lot of people of my generation thought the same thing about his last hurrah...

In preliminary national late-night ratings, Mr. O'Brien scored a booming 7 household rating, which was almost triple the number he had been averaging for months in that measure. More impressive was the number for 18-to-49-year-old viewers - the gold standard for NBC because advertisers seek to reach that audience. There, in overnight numbers from the country's 25 largest cities, Mr. O'Brien hit an extraordinary rating, a 4.8. Not only would that be by far the biggest rating in that age group for any kind of show at any time Friday night (if it holds up as a national rating and it will probably decrease only slightly), it is also a better number than almost every prime-time show that has appeared on NBC this television season.

Good job, Conan.