Ratings for Conan O'Brien's final "Tonight Show" are in -- and they're huge.
Friday's emotional sign-off soared to a 4.8 rating/18 share among adults 18-49 in the 25 overnight markets where Nielsen measures such data. It was easily the best tune-in for O'Brien since he debuted June 1, and nearly five times what he had been averaging this season.
Even more impressively, O'Brien brought in more young adults than any entertainment show on NBC's primetime lineup this week, and any single broadcast on any network during the past two days (though the "Hope for Haiti" telethon will obviously cume higher).
O'Brien even beat Jay Leno's alleged finale from last May (3.4 rating), according to TVBytheNumbers.com. And Leno had 17 years to build up to his psych-out swan song; the babies conceived during Conan's "Tonight" run haven't even been born yet.
Leno's sign-off did outrate O'Brien's in the broader Nielsen overnight household averages, scoring an 8.8 rating to Coco's 7.0/16.
Not surprisingly, the other late-night shows took a hit in the numbers Friday. CBS's "Late Show" earned a 0.6/2.
