During the week of September 10, 2012, ABC posted week-to-week gains in both Total Viewers (+12%) and Adults 18-49 (+1%) to deliver its best performance in late-night in 3 weeks – since week of 8/20/12. In addition, ABC stood as the only broadcaster to grow its overall audience over the same week last year (+3%), as both CBS (-12%) and NBC (-17%) saw double-digit declines. Together, Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live form ABC’s winning late-night strategy of airing news and entertainment programming.
For the week, ABC’s Nightline ranked as the #1 program in late-night in Total Viewers and Adults 25-54. Nightline was up week-to-week by double-digits in Total Viewers (+16%) and Adults 25-54 (+15%) to hit 7-week highs in both Nielsen measures – since w/o 7/23/12. Season to date, Nightline ranks #1 in late night among Total Viewers and Adults 25-54, ahead of both NBC’s The Tonight Show and CBS’ The Late Show. This marks the 3rd straight season that the ABC program is taking the top spot in overall viewers, and 2nd season in a row in the key adult news demo.
During the week, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live grew week to week in both Total Viewers (+11%) and Adults 18-49 (+2%), drawing its biggest overall audience in 4 weeks – since w/o 8/13/12. JKL was also up by 6% in viewers over the year-ago week, standing as the only late-night broadcast talk show to grow its overall audience year to year. ABC’s JKL (M-F 12am) outdrew NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (M-F 12:35am) by 5% in Total Viewers, drawing a larger audience than the NBC program on 3 of 5 days of the week: Tuesday (+2%), Wednesday (+25%) and Friday (+19%). In fact, on Friday, a repeat telecast of JKL outdelivered an original Fallon in both Total Viewers (+19%) and Adults 18-49 (+2%). ABC’s JKL outperformed CBS’ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (M-F 12:35am) in both Total Viewers (+41%) and Adults 18-49 (+32%) for the 27th week in a row. In fact, JKL has drawn a larger overall audience than Ferguson in 51 of the 52 weeks this season. In addition, the ABC late-night program beat Ferguson on all 5 days of the week in both viewers and young adults for the 4th time in the last 5 weeks. Season to date (52 weeks), Jimmy Kimmel Live is building its overall audience over the comparable weeks last year by 3% in Total Viewers, qualifying as the only late-night broadcast talk show to grow year over year.
(source: ABC)
