WORKING NBC LATE SHIFT SUITS CONAN O'BRIEN JUST FINE

by Scott Williams  --  Chicago Tribune  --  May 7, 1994  --  Section: WEEKEND CHICAGO

It was little more than a year ago that an unknown Conan O'Brien surfaced as David Letterman's successor as host of NBC's "Late Night" show. Since then, he's been grilled by the press, dissed by critics and, according to every rumor floated in the trades, primed for firing from his job at NBC's second-best late-night franchise.

To his credit, O'Brien has taken every lick since his Sept. 13, 1993, debut. A 31-year-old ex-writer for "The Simpsons" and "Saturday Night Live," he came on the scene in the glare of the media's hottest spotlights. "You don't follow David Letterman, come out of nowhere, be pretty new at it, make your mistakes on the air, and do a completely whole different thing with it and not have people hit you over the head with a baseball bat," he said.

He remembers his elation after the first show. "We really all liked the first show, and I had a good time, and we were all going, `Yeah! Yeah!' And it just suddenly hit me: `This is not about that. This isn't about any one night.' "

And he remembers his initial reviews.

"We got a lot of good press and I remember thinking, OK, when's it going to come? I remember the day that Chevy (Chase) was canceled, thinking, `OK. Here we go.' "

These days, however, O'Brien is talking like somebody whose troubles-as well as 150-plus shows-are behind him. His show has grown from a 1.7 rating, with an 8 percent audience share in its first quarter, to a 1.8 rating, 9 share in the second. He keeps 41 percent of the "Tonight" audience. Letterman's final season rated in the mid-2s.

"It's a two-fold process," O'Brien said. "I've now done a lot of it. I love being out there.

"That's half of it. The other half is people have to get comfortable with you."

O'Brien said he and his staff felt they'd turned the corner when Letterman returned to the show and was lavish in his praise for O'Brien's show. "What Letterman pointed out is that it's a completely different sensibility. . . . You don't see it anywhere else in TV."

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