Conan O'Brien had more than a million reasons to be happy Tuesday -- 4.2 million reasons actually.
That's because the heavily promoted launch of O'Brien's late-night talk show was watched by an estimated 4.2 million viewers Monday night, according to The Nielsen Company.
O'Brien also did better than his late-night rivals.
NBC's "Tonight with Jay Leno" averaged 3.5 million in Nielsen's fast national ratings. And CBS' "Late Show with David Letterman" averaged 3.4 million viewers.
The audience was very good for a late-night show, and for TBS, where O'Brien's opening night improved by 435% what the network did in the time period the last four weeks.
More important, most of the audience was culled from the younger adult crowd. Indeed, TBS estimates the median age for the show was 30 Monday night.
"Conan's audience has been very vocal online, and he clearly made a smooth transition from Twitter to TBS," Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks said in a statement. "Conan delivered an extraordinary audience and stands out as the youngest late-night talk show on television."
The real test, of course, will be how the show performs in the coming weeks. Typically, there's a big early audience of curiosity seekers, which levels off after a couple of weeks.
O'Brien returned to TV Monday for the first time since he left the hosting job at NBC's "Tonight" in January, after NBC officials wanted to shake up the late-night lineup. With Jay Leno's prime-time effort failing, NBC first looked to move Leno to 11:35 p.m., and push "Tonight" to 12:05, with O'Brien as host. He said no, maintaining it would ruin the "Tonight" franchise.
He ended up leaving with a $45 million settlement, $12 million of it earmarked for his staff.
Leno returned to the "Tonight" show job in March.
"It feels great to be back," O'Brien Tweeted after Monday's show. "To all my fans: Thank you. You are the reason this happened. Also, now I have to change my Twitter bio. Damn you."
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