We don’t normally pay attention to this kind of thing, but in this case, we’ll make an exception: For the first time in ten years, The Tonight Show failed to come out on top in the quarterly late-night ratings race among viewers 18 to 49. Instead, that honor went to The Daily Show. Sure, the margin was slim (1.295 million viewers vs. 1.292 million viewers), but we’re sure that this has the suits over at NBC wondering if they made the right decision bringing back Jay Leno. In other happy news for Comedy Central, the Daily Show/Colbert Report programming block finished the quarter as the top-rated late-night shows among younger viewers 18 to 34. What can we say? Young people love their fake news shows. Meanwhile, things are not looking so good for Conan O’Brien as of late; for the first time since his show’s premiere in November, monthly viewership dipped below the 1 million viewer mark, putting him behind E!’s late-night offering, Chelsea Lately… [via THR]
Architecture! At its best, visionary, innovative, mold-breaking. At its worst, cheesy, overwrought, and ill-timed. The recent architectural follies of Dubai present a fairly good case for prudence in the building arts: a Marvel superhero-themed park is a questionable expenditure even in boom times; as for the world’s largest LED structure, a new opera house, a revolving “dynamic” tower, and an experimental resort dubbed “The Cloud,” well, it’s beginning to look like Gomorrah in Abu Dhabi. But as we know all too well, the current financial crisis is a global situation, which is why we’ve rated six new developments and their associated levels of what-were-they-thinking-ness. Follow along after the jump.
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1. The results of today’s union vote could decide if The Times shuts down The Globe. [via NYT]
2. Sweden’s Pirate Party captures a seat in the European Parliament. [via Reuters]
3. Hmm: “A secret sect of kung fu assassins could have silenced actor David Carradine as he delved into their shadowy activities, according to his family’s lawyer.” [via NYP]
4. Proving she’s crazy like a fox, Susan Boyle hires Ossie Kilkenny — the financial whiz who formerly advised Bono — as her manager. [via TDB]
5. Conan won his first week, but his audience shrunk with each episode. [via THR]