ABC is Late-Night’s Most-Watched Net

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During the week of July 16, 2012, ABC grew its overall audience for the 3rd week in a row to deliver its 2nd-most-watched week in late-night this summer to date. ABC was also up over the prior week for the 2nd consecutive week among Adults 18-49 to earn its best young adult number in late-night in 1 month – since the week of 6/18/12. Together, Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live form ABC’s winning late-night strategy of airing news and entertainment programming. ABC posted year-to-year gains for the 2nd week in a row in both Total Viewers (+8%) and Adults 18-49 (+4%) and stood as the only broadcaster to see yearly growth in either Nielsen measure, as CBS both (-14%/-28%) and NBC (-8%/-13%) each saw losses. ABC outdrew CBS by 28% and NBC by 7% to rank as late-night’s most-watched network for the 3rd week running. In fact, ABC has ranked as the #1 network in Total Viewers in 24 of the 44 weeks of the season – more than CBS (14) and NBC (6) combined. Standing as late-night’s #1 network for the 2nd week running in Adults 18-49, ABC increased its leads over CBS to 39% and NBC to 11%, from 33% and 5%, respectively, the prior week. ABC has qualified as the top-rated network among young adults for the 23rd time this season, marking the most number of wins in late-night.


For the week, ABC’s Nightline ranked as the #1 program in late-night for the 2nd week in a row across all key target demos: Total Viewers, Adults 25-54 and Adults 18-49. Nightline has ranked as the #1 late-night program in all 3 demos in 15 of the last 17 weeks. Nightline has taken the #1 position in 31 weeks in Total Viewers, 35 weeks in Adults 25-54 and 34 weeks in Adults 18-49 of the 44 weeks of the season to date. For the 2nd straight week Nightline saw gains over the previous week in Total Viewers (+1%), Adults 25-54 (+4%) and Adults 18-49 (+4%), drawing its largest overall audience in 5 weeks – since w/o 6/11/12.

ABCDuring the week, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live grew for the 2nd consecutive week in both Total Viewers and Adults 18-49 to deliver its best performance in 1 month – since w/o of 6/18/12. JKL was also up over the year-ago week by 11% in Viewers and by 5% in young adults, marking its 2nd straight week of year-over-year growth. In fact, the ABC program was the only late-night broadcast talk show to see yearly increases in both Nielsen measures. During the week, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live stood as the #3 talk show in late-night in Total Viewers, behind only NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS’ The Late Show with David Letterman. ABC’s JKL (M-F 12am) topped NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (M-F 12:35am) by 5% in Total Viewers and by 2% in Adults 18-49. In addition, on Friday, a repeat telecast of JKL outdelivered an original Fallon by 5% in Viewers and by 33% among young adults. ABC’s JKL outperformed CBS’ The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (M-F 12:35am) in both Total Viewers (+59%) and Adults 18-49 (+64%) for the 19th week in a row. In fact, JKL has drawn a larger overall audience than Ferguson in 43 of the 44 weeks this season. In addition, the ABC late-night program beat Ferguson in all 5 days of the week in both Viewers and young adults for the 6th time in the last 7 weeks.

(source: ABC)