Conan’s Armenian Trip Air Date Postponed To Get Out Of Donald Trump’s Way

Update with new date: Conan’s camp said this afternoon that, due to scheduling changes, his Armenian road trip will now air one week later, on Tuesday, November 17.

On October 12, O’Brien’s show announced his latest road trip would air November 10. About an hour or two later, Fox Business announced November 10 as date it would broadcast its GOP debate, which, being highly like to star GOP frontrunner/TV ratings magnet Donald Trump, is likely to suck all the air out of the room that night. Not to mention how Trump’s latest debate performance is likely to dominate the next day’s news cycle, leaving little time to talk about Conan’s trip to Armenia.

Armenia would have to wait.

Previous: Conan O’Brien will become the first American late-night host to film in Armenia, when his latest road trip airs on November 10.

Conan and TBS are hoping he can re-create some of the press coverage, and ratings, it achieved last spring when O’Brien shocked the media and made headlines as the first American late-night host to shoot in Cuba in more than 50 years. He also generated larger than usual ratings with his Cuba trip — in April, TBS reported a total of 3.7 million viewers had checked out Conan In Cuba. During the Cuba special, Conan mocked CNN, learned the importance of the Cuban clave beat, wowed a band with his 8th-grade Spanish skills, and filed a report for CNN.

During his Cuba visit, Conan also mastered the Spanish tongue twister about three sad tigers, sampled rum — a lot — with guide Gretel, took an intensive lesson to master the erotic rumba, and visited the famous waterfront promenade where Cuban youth shared with him their rum — in a box — and cigarettes, which Conan speculated cost him all his show sponsors.

That ratings update came one day after the White House announced President Obama will remove Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism as part of Obama’s move to restore diplomatic relations.

The Cuba trip cume was not far behind the 4.2 million who’d caught the unveiling of Conan’s TBS series when it premiered on November 8,  2010, marking the late-night veteran’s return to television, after his dramatic exit from NBC’s Tonight Show. The 3.7 million viewers were collected from multi-platform viewing across TBS’ premiere and encore telecasts, the Watch TBS website and app, DVR playback and set-top VOD. The show also brought in viewers through a pair of repeat runs on sister networks HLN and truTV.

TBS said today his Armenia road-trip episode also will be made available across the TBS and Team Coco digital and mobile platforms the following day.

Conan’s road trips are his strong suit, and TBS had said following the success of his Cuba visit he would do more road trips from other locations around the globe, with today’s announcement being the first.