Jay Leno signed off "The Tonight Show" on a high note, delivering the best ratings of his 17-year run for a Friday night telecast.

Leno's swan song averaged an 8.8 household rating/20 share in Nielsen's 56 overnight metered markets, which cover more than 70% of U.S. TV households. That marks a 126% hike over the show's metered-market average (3.9) during the past quarter.

But it didn't match the mark Leno set just two months ago, when President Obama guested on the show on March 19, his first visit since he was elected prez. That Thursday seg drew an 11.2/26 in the overnights, which was Leno's best since his tribute to his "Tonight Show" predecessor Johnny Carson following his death in January 2005, which delivered a 12.4 household rating.

Back in 1992, Carson wrapped his 30-year "Tonight Show" tenure with a 31.9 rating/62 share in the metered markets.

Leno's guests on Friday included his "Tonight Show" successor, Conan O'Brien (pictured above), who takes the helm on Monday. Variety's Michael Schneider has all the color on the final seg right here.

Leno's farewell, of course, is muted because the host is heading right back to NBC's air this fall with a nightly 10 p.m. variety show.

Leno's coattails took NBC's fledgling "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to its second-best number (3.8/12) since Fallon's March 2 debut. Fallon's best to date (3.9/13) was the night of Obama's appearance on "Tonight Show."

Rick Ludwin has been through plenty of regime changes in his 29 years at NBC (he's been there long enough to work for two bosses named Silverman).

But nothing in his experience compares to the buzz and the scrutiny generated by a transition at the top of "The Tonight Show." The first phase of the transition from Jay Leno to Conan O'Brien began last week with O'Brien's sign off after nearly 16 years on NBC's "Late Night," and it continues on Monday with O'Brien's successor, Jimmy Fallon, making his debut at 12:35 a.m.

As much as NBC has been in the spotlight the past few months with its latenight shuffle, and Leno-at-10 decision, it's been a far, far less traumatic than the last time around, when Leno took the baton from Johnny Carson in May 1992, according to Ludwin, who is NBC's exec veep of late night and primetime series.

"This is a more peaceful transfer of power than the last time around," Ludwin says. "Nothing could surpass the intensity of the coverage of Carson, who was such a person of distinction in our country."

Ludwin and Lorne Michaels are the only two people in senior roles at NBC who were around during the Carson-Leno-Letterman scrum. This time around, Ludwin tried to prep his colleagues as best he could.

"'The Tonight Show' is an American institution. It's the gold standard of late night shows, and there's a bond between people and this show," he says. "And these transitions only happen once every ice age, so of course there's an intense interest."

Ludwin spent the past week in Gotham observing Fallon and "Late Night" exec producer Michaels at work on a week of test shows prior to Monday's on-air bow. The live aud was very receptive, and Fallon's style is already distinctive from O'Brien's, Ludwin said. The show is also very attuned to melding interactive elements into the telecast and on its website because "Jimmy is of the generation of multitasking," Ludwin says.

Conan O'Brien was a class act in signing off of "Late Night" on Friday after 16 years. Hard to believe that he hosted that show longer than David Letterman did.

Conan spent the past 10 minutes of his final "Late Night" seg saying a heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped him on his way, from Letterman to Jay Leno to Lorne Michaels and Jeff Ross to his family to various regimes of NBC execs (and through it all, Rick Ludwin stands tall).

Variety's Michael Schneider has the skinny on it all right here, or watch the seg for yourself courtesy of Hulu. And then click here to check out a seven-minute clip of a very different, very gawky Conan from mid-1993, doing a guest stint as "the new guy" with Letterman on the show he would soon inherit.

Craig Ferguson knows the water very well in which Jimmy Fallon is about to swim or sink, and he urged writers at Wednesday’s TCA session to be kind to his upcoming 12:30 a.m. rival.

“Give Jimmy a month before you review him,” Ferguson asked. “That would be fair. I would’ve given me a couple weeks. I think you should give him a chance.” 

Certainly, Ferguson, (flanked by producer Michael Nadius, left, and exec producer Peter Lassally), who recently became a U.S. citizen and just got married a few weeks ago, has made the most of his chance when he started his post-midnight shift three years ago. He is arguably the hottest latenight host, according to both critics and the burgeoning ratings.

Ferguson’s trademark has become his unstructured opening monologue, which is a sort of free-form rant on what’s on his mind that night. It can offer anything from the typical potshots at celebrities, a cerebral look at the political issues of the day or, as was the case a few weeks ago, a catharsis on the death of his mom.

As for that particular show in which he talked about his mother, Ferguson recalled: “I didn’t concern myself with what the audience wanted to hear. What I try to do — and what I try to do 99 out of 100 nights — is amuse you before you go to sleep. That night, though, I didn’t feel like that. I try to be as truthful as possible. That’s why I approached it that way.”

His sense of humor, Ferguson said, comes from a very dark place.

“I think if you’re happy as a person it would be impossible to do comedy at all,” he explained. “My psychiatrist said — and this is true — that I have reserves of unhappiness equal to Saudi Arabia’s reserves of oil.”

Certainly, and Ferguson isthe first to acknowledge this, the show has greatly benefited from having talkshow veteran Lassally at its side. The classy Lassally, who spent decades with Johnny Carson, acts as a stabilizing force and voice of reason.

When asked about his thoughts of Jay Leno taking his show five nights a week at 10 p.m. on NBC, Lassally offered up this insight:

“It’s very brave of NBC but a big gamble. If Jay succeeds at 10 p.m., my concern is will people go to sleep after that? NBC affiliates would be very unhappy for the 11 o’clock news ratings to slip, and what would it do for the 11:30 and 12:30 shows?

“It could shake things up tremendously. Competition on latenights shows isn’t the opposition, but sleep. Audiences will have to decide whether they want to stay through the next show or not. Also, there will be five latenight shows in L.A. all going after the same guests. It’s quite a change this year.”

— Stuart Levine

I'm guessing Jay Leno enjoyed dressing up as a "reporter" for the executive session with the Peacock's Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff at TCA on Monday, as Variety's Michael Schneider reports. I gotta admit, he looks like an amalgam of several TCA regulars.

CBS needed some happy news last week, and it got some courtesy of its resident Scotsman-turned-American in late night.

"The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" notched a milestone in its three-year-plus competish in the wee hours against NBC's long-dominant "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" by winning the week ended April 4 -- Ferguson averaged 1.88 million viewers for the frame to O'Brien's 1.77 million.

Not that latenight always has to be measured strictly a death-match, zero-sum game -- both Conan and Craig are very funny fellows indeed and viewers are well-served by their diverse styles -- but it is a competitive business and ratings are the yardstick by which ad sales and pop culture traction are measured.

NBC number crunchers noted that Ferguson got a big boost that week from the post-strike return of CBS' big scripted guns, the three "CSIs," "Without a Trace," "Criminal Minds" plus the circulation lift from the NCAA finals coverage, while NBC was still mostly in reruns.

Looking back over the past few weeks, however, the trend is interesting. "Late Late Show" has been making it a real horse race with "Late Night" of late, in spite of the latter's lead-in benefit from "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Indeed, Ferguson is more competitive with O'Brien than his 11:35 a.m. companion, "The Late Show with David Letterman" is with "Tonight Show" -- the berth O'Brien is to move up to in the fall of '09.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Jay Leno remembers the "Tonight Show" transition well.

As Johnny Carson was stepping down as the king of latenight in 1992, both Leno and David Letterman were in line for the job. Letterman was at the time a 12:30 a.m. cult fave and Leno was a steady stand-up comedian who would often act as a fill-in host for Carson.

After much behind-the-scenes wrangling, Leno got the job and the ratings have been steady, so NBC can feel like it made the right choice. Letterman, of course, moved on to CBS where the network was finally able to create a latenight beachfront.

But now Leno will be on the other end of a "Tonight Show" transition, though this should be much smoother. Maybe not so much for Jay, though.