NBC's late-night lineup delivering an edge

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NBC’s late-night lineup has scored decisive ratings wins for the week of September 5-9, with “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” delivering bigger audiences than their ABC and CBS time-period competition in every key ratings category: adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, as well as total viewers.


Note that Thursday’s NBC telecasts were delayed by a high-rated primetime NFL overrun. All Monday telecasts are excluded from these averages due to the Labor Day holiday. And Friday’s “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS was a rebroadcast.

Jay generated his biggest adult 18-49 audience (1.282 million) in nine weeks (since the week of July 4-8) and his biggest overall audience (3.734 million) in seven weeks (since the week of July 18-22). The delayed telecast on Thursday, Sept. 8 generated “Tonight’s” biggest 18-49 audience for a single telecast (1.871 million) since December 28, 2010.

Jimmy Fallon delivered his biggest weeklong adult 18-49 audience (867,000) and biggest overall audience (1.848 million) in 11 weeks, since the week of June 20-24. Jimmy averaged a bigger 18-49 audience for the week than did CBS’s “Late Show” (867,000 vs. 836,000), though “Late Night” starts an hour later than “Late Show.”

For the week at 1:35 a.m. ET, encore telecasts of “Last Call with Carson Daly” delivered a bigger 18-49 audience (564,000) than ABC’s “Kimmel” first-runs (563,000) and CBS’s originals of “Late Late Show” (542,000), though “Last Call” starts 90 minutes later than “Kimmel” and an hour later than “Late Late Show.”

In adult 18-49 viewers, “Last Call” averaged 564,000 persons last week, its biggest 18-49 audience in more than nine months (since the week of November 22-26). In total viewers, “Last Call” averaged 1.116 million persons for the week, its biggest overall audience in more than eight months (since December 27-31, 2010).

So far during the 2010-11 television season versus the first 51 weeks of last season, “Tonight” is up by 10 percent in total viewers (3.848 million vs. 3.486 million), while “Late Show” is down 8 percent (3.354 million vs. 3.653 million). At 12:35 a.m. ET, Jimmy Fallon is up 12 percent versus his year-ago pace in total viewers (1.764 million vs. 1.579 million), while “Late Late Show” is down 8 percent (1.650 million vs. 1.773 million).

At 1:35 a.m. ET, “Last Call with Carson Daly” is up so far this season versus one year ago by 2 percent in 18-49 viewers (481,000 vs. 470,000) and up 10 percent in total viewers (973,000 vs. 881,000).

(source: NBC)