Conan Online

I’ve been watching the fun and games over The Tonight Show with a mixture of awe and incredulity. It shouldn’t be a surprise to regular readers that I have a huge amount of respect for Johnny Carson – in fact the single phrase I pushed as the “takeaway” from my “How to interview people” session at Blogworld Expo was Watch lots of Carson.

Upshot is, popular late night host Conan O’Brien is now leaving The Tonight Show for destinations unknown. While it’s likely that Fox will eventually take him on board, there will be a lot of people (Revision3!) suggesting that he goes online and does the show there.

If Coco thought his lead in from Jay Leno was hurting him, just wait till he realises that the web has no lead-in beyond the occasional Digg headline (although he might have some help there). Do I think he will go online? Probably not. But if he did, then it would

Talk Shows are traditionally one of the cheaper forms of TV to put in place – although the hosts can gather in telephone number salaries compared to CSI Scarborough the bottom line is much smaller. But going online means a lot less income… a lot. Arguably O’Brien and his exec producer have been given their Frak You money from NBC (hey my Mum reads this, okay!) so they don;t need to worry about salary, but the running of a Tonight Online show would take some serious commitment to do it to the same level as NBC… or even better.

But O’Brien has advantages that few media producers online have. He transcends the web and there is the obvious name and brand recognition that he has – it’s almost given that any Ad Sales team would be able to cover running costs on any show, even if Hollywood sized wages wouldn’t be on the cards.

I’d argue that there hasn’t yet been a breakout show from the web – the closest in the UK has been Ask Me This Answer Me This (which I should really have remembered) who received a one off radio commission for an “End of 2009” show on BBC Radio, or Limmy (thanks to @iainmhepburn for the nudge) with his BBC Scotland TV Series. O’Brien is in the position where he could become the show that makes “a TV show on the Internet” a reality.

But it’s risky. Horribly risky. And the upside for him is far far less than trying to get all the Fox affiliates to stop doing lucrative re-runs and run him head to head to head against Letterman and Leno.

Much as Coco online would be the most entrepreneurial move to make, I think we’ll continue to look for a new online video hero, and it’ll be someone new to the media mix, not an established star moving to a new field.