Jay's back

Rico says it's a good thing, as he's the best of the bunch (at least since Johnny Carson stepped down), but Rico rarely stays up that late these days. Bill Carter has the story in The New York Times:

A year after NBC upended its late-night world, order has quietly been restored: Jay Leno is back on The Tonight Show and topping the ratings virtually every week.
Conan O’Brien, who was displaced as host of the show, has moved to cable television and the other late-night hosts are maintaining their positions.
Some NBC executives have pointed to Mr. Leno’s slow but steady resumption of late-night leadership as vindication of the decision in January of 2010 to end his brief run in prime time on The Jay Leno Show and reinstate him as host of The Tonight Show. Mr. Leno, these executives say, is proving that the classic late-night show can be broadly appealing and still bring in more young viewers than any other entertainment show in the same time slot.
Mr. Leno did not come through his brief stint at 10 p.m. unscathed. Two years ago, his Tonight show averaged about five million viewers. This season it is down to about 3.9 million viewers. The decline has been similar among 18- to 49-year-olds, a crucial measure for advertisers in late night, so the average age of his audience is up, way up from what it was under Mr. O’Brien. But Mr. Leno still draws more viewers in that younger-adult group than any other late-night host. With the ratings of most late-night shows declining (along with most of broadcast television), Mr. Leno’s diminished performance is still good enough to keep him ahead of David Letterman on CBS, who had moved into first place when Mr. O’Brien was host of The Tonight Show.
Aaron Cohen, executive vice president for advertising purchases for Horizon Media, said Mr. Leno had lost ground as a result of his experiment in prime time. He noted, however, that ratings were down for most late-night hosts as more and more people play recorded programs in those hours.
Mr. O’Brien, meanwhile, is demonstrating that his audience remains passionate and young, while relatively small. After a spectacular first week in November, Mr. O’Brien’s ratings drifted down each week, but may now be leveling off. Last week his numbers ticked up for the first time in more than a month. If they do stabilize around this level, Mr. O’Brien will remain the leader among viewers in the youngest end of the late-night audience, and a force in the cable universe. Mr. O’Brien took over the top late-night spot in cable among younger viewers in his first two months, averaging about 900,000. He even led Mr. Leno for a time, and through the year’s end he stayed ahead of the reigning cable player, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s Daily Show.
During January, Mr. Stewart regained the top position in cable late-night shows among 18- to 49-year-olds, with about 895,000 viewers to Mr. O’Brien’s 811,000, while beating Mr. O’Brien in total viewers with about 1.6 million to about 1.1 million. To be fair to Mr. O’Brien, however, his hourlong show is at a disadvantage against Mr. Stewart’s half-hour show because late-night viewers head to bed, and viewership drops, with each passing minute.
But Mr. O’Brien outdrew Stephen Colbert’s show at 11:30 p.m. to win the hour in January among 18- to 49-year-olds. His 811,000 viewers topped the 784,000 for the Stewart-Colbert combination.
Mr. O’Brien has also posted the strongest numbers in late night when recorded playbacks are included. The median age for his show is, by a large measure, the youngest in late night: 31.1 years old. Mr. Colbert’s is 37.7; Mr. Stewart’s is 41; Jimmy Fallon’s is 49.2 on NBC; Jimmy Kimmel’s is 51.7 on ABC; Craig Ferguson’s is 52.9 on CBS; Mr. Leno’s is 55.6; and Mr. Letterman’s is 55.8. The other late-night host on TBS, George Lopez, has the second-youngest audience, at 33.7.
Michele Ganeless, president of Comedy Central, said, “It has never been about Jon versus Conan.” She said the two shows could easily co-exist.
Brad Adgate, director of research for Horizon Media, said “the way Conan’s ratings have been dropping might be causing alarm at TBS”, especially because TBS initially promised that the show would draw network-size young audiences. “It does look like Conan has a niche audience,” Mr. Adgate said.
That is a nonissue for TBS, according to the head of programming, Michael Wright. “That niche is to us a viable audience,” he said. “For a branded network like ours, that is really what you want: you want a talent that delivers a really specific audience.”
Mr. Cohen said Horizon Media’s ad clients had indeed been “promised network-sized delivery and that Conan would be first in the cable universe” but he added that, so far, “it ain’t broadcast-network-sized”. He acknowledged, however, that Mr. O’Brien’s appeal among young viewers, if he can keep it up, should result in financial success. “We have to see how this plays out, as Conan settles down,” Mr. Cohen said. “I don’t think the word for TBS should be alarmed. We may see Conan pick up. In the summer, remember, as a lot of kids come home from college and become more available. That’s Conan’s audience.”