Late Night Fight

A survey of nearly 12,000 senior marketing executives who represent major advertisers didn't predict a good future for NBC in the aftermath of the late-night television bloodbath that suddenly host Conan O'Brien without a gig. While we wonder if O'Brien is skulking about his living room long after lunch in a bathrobe and three-day beard, we imagine he would smile wide at the findings of Round2 Communications. Execs overwhelmingly felt that NBC management -- often the target of O'Brien's concluding sorties of jokes -- was to blame for the hard-feelings fiasco that sent ratings through the roof while laying Jay Leno open to attacks from practically everyone holding a microphone after the sun went down. Moreover, 43.3 percent of respondents thought the controversy would drive away ad revenue in the months after Leno returns to his old slot (although 19.7 percent felt that any publicity is good publicity). Here are the full results of the survey released just hours ago:

• 43.3% of respondents thought the controversy surrounding NBC's late-night lineup will hurt advertising by driving advertisers away, while 37% felt it would have no effect on ad sales. 19.7% felt that any publicity is good publicity.
• 94.5% of respondents felt NBC's management was primarily at fault in the situation.
• 46.9% of respondents felt that, assuming they could only keep one, NBC should have kept Conan, vs. 41.4% who sided with Leno.
• 11.7% wanted both to stay where they were in their respective time slots.
• When asked what they thought of Conan's initial response to the decision to move Leno back to the Tonight Show, 66.7% of respondents felt Conan was fully justified in view of NBC's treatment of the situation.
• 43.3% of respondents thought the controversy surrounding NBC's late-night lineup will hurt advertising by driving advertisers away, while 37% felt it would have no effect on ad sales. 19.7% felt that any publicity is good publicity.
• When asked what they thought would happen when NBC first made the schedule switch in September 2009, only 27.3% thought the new schedule would probably succeed, while 50% didn't think it would work, but expected NBC to stick with it anyway. 22.7% responded that they expected a situation like this to occur.
• In terms of a "winner" in the situation, 17.6% said Conan was the winner, since he can move to another network, 10.2% thought Leno came out on top, while the majority (46.1%) saw neither as the victor.

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