Viewers were excited to tune into Conan O’Brien’s Monday premiere … but they weren’t as pumped on Tuesday. Conan’s cable show lost one-third of its viewers in the transition from Day 1 to Day 2.

Maybe Jon Stewart is to blame? O’Brien’s new late night talk show is competing directly with the cable king, and we don’t like his odds. Monday’s Conan scored 4.2 million viewers, compared to 2.8 million the following night. (His rival Jay Leno averages around 3.6 million for his famous network gig.)

Critics were largely unenthusiastic with the Monday premiere. One writer at the Los Angeles Times complained about O’Brien’s endless NBC jokes, a gag that’s running a little thin nine months after the Tonight Show fallout.