'Conan' Premiere Beats Leno, Letterman

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Conan O'Brien is enjoying a sweet, sweet victory in the ratings.

The TBS premiere of Conan has soundly beaten NBC's Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Monday night.

Conan drew 4.2 million viewers, which is very impressive. What's more: 3.3 million of them were adults 18-49.

By comparison Tonight had 3.5 million viewers, with only 950,000 of his audience in the demo.

Late Show with David Letterman had 3.4 million and 1.3 million.  

O'Brien also trounced Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, as expected (see chart below).

As rivals are sure to point out, the series premiere of a new late-night program is almost always victorious, people want to check out the new show. O'Brien's Tonight on NBC dropped more than 50% from his premiere within a week. It's still an accomplishment, however, anytime a cable show beats broadcast.