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I’m digesting all the info, but here are the late night viewer totals for the week of 7/13-7/17:
Nightline: 3.743 million
Late Show: 3.454 million
The Tonight Show: 2.713 million
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Late Late Show: 1.478 million
Jimmy Fallon: 1.269 million
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First time Late Show has topped Tonight Show in consecutive weeks since Feburary 1998 (when CBS had Nagano Olympics).
Demo gap continues to shrink between Late Show and Tonight Show.. Now only .2 in 18-49. Down to .5 in 18-34.
Late Show up vs same week last year. +17% in viewers. +10% in 25-54. +14% in 18-49. Even in 18-34.
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CBS’ late night momentum extending to 12:30 AM. Ferguson tops Fallon in viewers by largest margin since Fallon’s March premiere. The shows tied in 25-54.
Ferguson up vs same week last year. +8% in viewers. +20% in 25-54. Even in 18-49 and 18-34.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Nikki, why do you hate Conan?
How sad that Nightline wasn’t sitting at the top of the heap when Ted Koppel actually hosted a great show. Watching Martin Bashir makes my skin crawl and the show is nothing more than National Enquirer level features and exposes.
Wait. Just over six million people – a mere 2% of the US population – watch Conan and Dave?
And they get how much ink?
For all the column inches expended talking about those two, I woulda figured 150-200 million people watched them a night.
I love Craig Ferguson so much. That show is worth DVR’ing every night.
I sometimes wonder and have often wanted to say this:
Are you even aware that we (hardworking union brothers and sisters) work at NBC?? Your “giddy” glee at every bit of bad news about NBC is discouraging and disgusting to me personally and to many here. Maybe you should just once and a while resit the money grubbing urge to ridicule everything NBC in the name of your hate for Zucker and think of the workers here that you insult every time you insult him!!
Conan is a grating, irritating Host. And he clearly doesn’t know how interview guests with his shrill, hypetensive overtalking. When a Guest has to plead to get a word in edgewise, the interview has failed.
Conan simply doesn’t work in this TS format.
So, when will GE finally dump the impish one?
What’s CBS’ strategy for maintaining its position among the broadcast nets? Bribing GE to keep Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman right where they are.
The Tonight Show (1953 – 2009)
RIP
When does Jeffrey Immelt finally open his eyes and realize what a boob Jeff Zucker is? If I failed as badly at my job as Zucker does at his I would have been fired years ago. Makes you wonder what sort of photographs Jeff Zucker has hidden away of Jeffrey Immelt doing god only knows what.
Hey Beamer, by your argument, since every major network and studio in town are union shops, Nikki shouldn’t say anything bad about any of them… Stop being such a cry baby.
Conan needs Hugh Grant to get arrested with a hooker.
The first thirty minutes of the Late Late Show with Craig Furguson is, by far, the funniest of the late night programing.
Is there any way to get a breakdown just for the first half hour? Otherwise, comparing Nightline with the other two is apples vs. oranges. Over/Under on one year for Leno back hosting the Tonight Show. I’d take the over. Just barely.
How’s Kimmel doing? He gets the lead-in from Nightline, does it help?
Jimmy Fallon hurts me. Poor Jimmy Fallon. Maybe we should put him out of my misery. You guys can do it. I’ve almost given up on TV, anyway
Will you idiots please stop saying that Craig Ferguson is funny?
When Letterman moved to 11:35 on CBS, people were concerned that the show wouldn’t be as irreverent and anarchic has it had been at 12:35, and that’s true. The show was not as good, but was still fine. Then Dave seemingly got stuck in a creative rut early this decade, and would devote a segment, seemingly every night, to calling his office assistant upstairs. Meg Parsont, they were not. Now his show is funnier than it’s been in over a decade.
As compared to CBS Dave’s first few weeks, Conan’s transition, to my eyes, has been less successful. I’m too lazy to put my finger on what the specific problems are, but generaly, it’s just not as funny. Case in point, they sent Andy Richter out to the All-Star Game, but his segment was more ‘look where I am!’ then humorous. And Andy Richter is usually awesome! Middle America would love the ‘clutch cargo’ interviews – so where are they? Can’t Smiegel do them from 30 Rock? That said, I’m glad If They Mated has been retired.
But people here are being too hasty. Conan is naturally funny, and his show will be better in six months than it is today. That said, I’ll probably stick with Dave.
Oh, and I’ve never met Jimmy Fallon, but he seems like a genuinely nice guy – funny too. That said, Craig Ferguson is the best thing on late night. It’s a shame CBS doesn’t promote his show (it’s not even in HD), but even though he doesn’t get the best guests, he’s doing great television.
Dave’s ratings are basically the same. The story is Conan is losing the “Leno only” audience and they are no longer watching late night programming. They broke the Tonight Show habit.
When Leno took over for Carson he was the guest host for years, so that audience was familar with him. It was a total gamble and pretty arrogant to think they could plug in anyone and think they could get the same raatings as before, like the “Tonight Show” name and timeslot is the star. No. Just like any other NBC timeslot it can get really low ratings too.
Does anyone out there know WHY CBS doesn’t promote Ferguson’s Show? It’s fantastic and CBS seems not to know it exists. Anyone?
Yeah, half-hour, full-hour, whatever. Leno never had any problem routinely beating Nightline, now all of a sudden it’s an issue because Nightline is suddenly outdelivering both Letterman and Conan. I find that the most hilarious thing about this whole episode. Martin Bashir, the late night leader. Love it!
@TorontoTodd:
You have your “facts ” all mixed up.
Meg Parsont didn’t work for Dave, she worked for a publisher across the street from the RCA/GE Building in Rockefeller Center. She was a part of the show when Dave worked for NBC & that’s at least 16 years ago.
Dave or his staff found her by looking out a window at 30 Rock & aiming the camera at her. Her employer allowed it& she had some sort of audio set up in the office so she could talk to Dave.
On the CBS show, he did call up to Bob Borden who was some sort of all purpose assistant & Stephanie Birkitt a lot.
Paula, inside CBS the Ferguson show is considered an embarrassment to the network, and rightly so. He’s a sloppy, self-indulgent comic who laughs harder at his own jokes than anyone else ever would. Sure a small number of people find him funny, but people like Jim Belushi, too.
I know Meg Parsont didn’t work for Dave, and I wasn’t suggesting that she did. But he would call her occasionally, just as he called his staff years later. Except when he would call Meg in the next building, it was amusing.
And the fact that the calls (seemed) unexpected to her made them all the funnier.
Here is what Nikki is attacking, Jeff Zucker and it is because he is a stupid idiot that shouldn’t be working at NBC. For the record, someone at NBC thought that Conan O’Brien was a proven commodity, just like the Tonight Show, just because Conan used to follow Jay. They were wrong on both counts. What Jeff Zucker did was ruin the commodity that was the Tonight Show with a host that had no business being there. This isn’t a morning show where you can just stick somebody in a position and hope they stick. Example, NBC creates a fifth hour of Today and throws Nikki Finke and Lauren Graham in as co-hosts while pulling the plug on Late Night giving that late hour back to the stations.
Inside Poop (or should I just call you KM),
Ferguson is a genius and I suspect you aren’t. In fact, I suspect you couldn’t deliver for the LLS and ended up “writing” for Carson Daly’s show.
Does anyone know the REAL reason CBS doesn’t support Ferguson’s show?
Getting back to Conan…He’s ugly, and not just ugly, weird looking; his voice is so reedy it drives a hole through human eardrums; he’s arrogant (though he tried to pretend otherwise); and he’s not funny. He tries to be funny but that’s not the same thing as actually being funny.
Maybe ugly, reedy and arrogant won’t kill the show but not funny certainly will.