Conan O'Brien's TBS show draws big ad rates

Conan O'Brien's TBS late night show, which debuts in November, has seen "very strong" advertising demand and drawn ad rates "on parity with broadcast" TV, Time Warner chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes told Wall Street Wednesday. It's the first time experts remember a cable show reaching pricing parity.

Brad Adgate, senior vp, research at media buying agency Horizon Media, told THR that while TW's cable network ad sales team was very aggressive on the O'Brien show, the high ad rates are "surprising" as marketers typically still pay less for cable shows.

"Sports and kids shows are more likely to get network-like pricing on cable," he said.

He still doubts though that O'Brien will draw the same number of viewers on TBS that he used to get on NBC.

More on current media ad rates here.