I shouldn't even know about it, let alone care.

Yesterday I found myself watching live footage from the "We're with Coco" rally outside Universal Studios, Hollywood, on TMZ.com.

Why? I'm not really even sure. But I watched for a good hour or so and even felt a strange sense of pride in it all. I probably first heard of Conan O'Brien around the time it was announced he would get the Tonight Show, back in 2004. At that time I watched David Letterman on ITV2. I'm not sure how, but I had seen Leno and just never found him to be funny. I remember people praising him for writing his own monologue and how no other late night host did that - which may have been true at the time, but the fact is, it wasn't a funny monologue. The jokes fell flat. At least Letterman's, although written by a team of writers, got a few laughs from the audience and when they didn't, it didn't feel as awkward as did on Leno.

When I was in America in 2006, I favoured Craig Ferguson's brand of Late Night over any others, he actually made me laugh. Conan was occasionally put on, but I wasn't that interested. It wasn't until around 2008 or so, that I started watching Conan semi-regularly. There'd occasionally be a guest on that I'd want to see, so I'd download the show and give it a watch. It was then, that I started to appreciate Conan's humour and the show as a whole. I still didn't watch it all the time and I can't claim to have watched the Tonight Show all the time either, but I liked Conan and understood why others liked him too. When he moved to the Tonight Show last year, I downloaded the first episode and for the first time ever, actually found myself laughing at, or with, the host of the Tonight Show. Who knew that was possible?

Over the years, the stories I've heard about Conan have been nothing but positive. During the writers strike, when the show was unable to work, he paid his staff out of his own pocket. When moving from his old show to the Tonight Show, he took his entire staff with him, from the east coast, to the west coast. Something which I'm sure he didn't have to do and just yesterday, when a couple hundred people showed up outside Universal Studios to show their support for him, he and his staff sent out free pizza, amongst other things.

I think it's safe to say from the above that I am, indeed, "Team Conan" - but again, why? The Tonight Show is a brand that has been on the air for nearly 66 years - but it's an American brand - one that barely airs here, if indeed it still does (I know Leno's tonight show used to air on CNBC at some point, but it was never something I watched there).

The internet has allowed me to follow and become immersed in another countries pop culture, to the extent where I can be more clued into the goings on than people actually living in that country and I'm not the only one.

Tying into the piracy argument I've put forward before, the internet has given shows an audience far exceeding that which will show up on any ratings breakdown, which isn't necessarily a positive thing when it comes to the shows themselves. If you don't get ratings, you don't stay on the air, but if networks like NBC were to open up live streaming and catch-up services with localised advertising, I'm sure they'd soon realise the audience and potential customers they really have.

Conan came out and said, in a public statement that he refused to do the Tonight Show at 12:05 (an offer made to him when it was announced that they were moving Leno back to 11:35) - stating that the Tonight Show has always been on at 11:35 and it wouldn't be the Tonight Show if it weren't. I respect him for that, even if it is in a world where timeslots don't matter and TV is watched online. Conan believed in what he was doing and was doing well at it. He believed in the Tonight Show as a brand, a brand he was only given 6 months to call his own, before NBC decided to, essentially, fire him and put Leno back in his place. 

"We're the generation that's gotta be heard." 

Although unlikely to change their minds at this late date, NBC have certainly been told, by many, that the decision they're making is the wrong one and that's the thing I'm proud of. The fact that a kid from Scotland can be involved in something half way across the world. It's definitely not the most important thing to ever rock the world. But it's something many people are passionate about and it shows that when passionate, people can come together. If I lived in L.A. I would have been standing in the rain with those people outside Universal Studios yesterday, cause I'm with CoCo.


-- I understand that TV is a business and like all business, it can be cruel. But seeing how things go down, I honestly think I could do a better job. I'm not saying I would be loved by everyone, but I think I would make better choices and show better profits than a network like NBC has managed in a number of years. Networks as a whole seem to be catering to the wrong crowd and while, to an extent it may be working just now, it won't work in the long run and it's the long run that matters.