Advertisers no longer regard NBC's Tonight show as the essential late-night television buy, the Associated Press reported today (Tuesday), quoting David Campanelli, vice president and director of national television for Horizon Media, as saying, "There are a lot of viable options out there. ... I don't have to go to one or two places to spend my late-night money." Campanelli made it clear that Jay Leno's Tonight show is merely one of those options. "No one sees Leno as the big player anymore -- the one show you have to be on," Campanelli said. The A.P. observed that Leno and Jay Letterman are currently running virtually neck-and-neck among total adults and that younger viewers are being drawn to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central and Conan O'Brien on TBS. During the first two weeks of O'Brien's new show, he has cut into the ratings of his Comedy Central competitors, but the channel's president, Michele Ganeless, maintains that he doesn't pose a substantial threat. "What Jon and Stephen do is so unique and unparalleled, and so different from what Conan does that there really is room for all of them to succeed," Ganeless told The Wire service.

23/11/2010