Cable jumpers

I know I am a few days late on these stories, but I still wanted to add my two cents in on them:

Conan strikes deal with TBS
I can't say that I thought he would wind up here, but it's not necessarily a bad deal either. There are certainly a lot of positives to it: he only has to do shows 4 days a week, ratings expectations will be significantly lower, and he'll get a lot more money than he would have got on NBC. With regards to that last point though, it should be pointed out that part of the charm, at least in my opinion, with Conan's old show was that it had a low budget feel to it. It seemed to make him more creative instead of spending a lot of money to do less funny remote bits. Let's hope that Conan uses the money wisely to still produce an awesome show. The other key downsides are that his presence will, at least initially, not be as great on cable. Also, being on at 11 o'clock, he'll have to compete against The Daily Show, which has a lot of viewers in his core demographic. The one thing that I have yet to hear about this deal is where the show will be. Personally, I think staying out in LA would be a terrible idea, yet I have a feeling that is likely where it will be. NY seems like a better fit because Conan just seems to have more of an East Coast mentality and he would more likely get better guests. Overall, I wish him the best and I'll certainly be interested to see how it all goes down come this November.

WWE Smackdown moving to SyFy
I'm sure the WWE hates that this move takes them off network TV. However, given that they were currently floundering on the hard to find MyNetworkTV channel, this will probably actually boost their presence. I'm actually surprised SyFy agreed to this since every indication has been that they've been disappointed with the ratings for the ECW and NXT shows. Ideally, I would like for this move to be the first step towards ending the brand extension, but for whatever reason, I have a feeling that Vince feels there's still money in it. Ultimately this move probably won't matter one way or the other since the business is cyclical and people that are interested in tuning in will find the show no matter what channel it's located on.