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CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman tied NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for the second consecutive time last week after achieving the feat for the first time this season the week before. The 2 late-night shows also pulled in identical ratings in adults 18-34 and adults 25-54 last week, with Leno drawing a slightly larger overall audience, 3.6 million vs. 3.4 million for Letterman. But both were down in 18-49 from the same week last year when The Tonight Show with host Conan O’Brien and Letterman averaged a 1.0/4 in the 18-49 demo. Letterman was also down year-to-year in total viewers (14%) and adults 25-54 (14%) and even in 18-34 (0.6/2). A year ago, he got a ratings boost from the extortion plot story, which broke in early October. Leno’s total audience last week was 44% higher than Conan’s but it was also much older. In 18-34, Leno (0.6/3) was down 33% from Conan’s numbers the same week last year.
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In other words, Leno is still beating Letterman like he has for the last 20 years.
Exactly. For the Conanites – to review: NBC offered to dump Leno when he was a solid #1 in his time slot just to keep Conan from jumping networks. Leno graciously accepted the bizarre business plan without so much as a whimper. Conan had a chance to do an adult Tonight Show but chose to stay with the “youngstertainment”. it bombed. NBC reinstated Leno and the rating went up. I understand why Letterman was upset – he had a competitor again. In what fantastical mind-warped world was Conan wronged? Television is ALL about ratings. What a spoiled, self-centered brat he turned out to be.
I can’t watch Letterman anymore. The guy’s been phoning it in for about a decade now. I also think Jay’s never been the same since the whole Conan thing. It’s time for them to be eased out. Conan wasn’t funny at 12:30 or 11:30 and he won’t be funny on TBS. Who would have thunk that Jimmy Fallon is the rising prince of late night. Live long enough…
The commercials for Conan’s new show are awful and simply not funny. They are embarrassing
The reality is: this isn’t the 60′s, 70′s, or even 80′s where you punch the clock on an 8hr day and go home and have dinner and watch TV all night. To survive today people are working 10hrs a day and getting home late to dinner. Nobody has the time to watch or even care about these shows. The best they can do is TiVo episodes of Real Housewives and watch them on their staycation!
If someone had told me a couple years ago that in 2010 Jay Leno would be pulling these kinds of awful numbers I would have said they were insane. My how the mighty have fallen. He used to beat Letterman with a 1.6 or 1.7 to .9. Now they’re tied. Amazing.
Considering Jay’s astronominical salary NBC needs to bring in a younger, cheaper host who can get the same or better ratings. When Conan comes on probably both Jay and Dave will tumble just a bit – only a bit ’cause the audience is different – to a .7 or .8. Those are unsustainable numbers for big budget late night programs.
By contrast, Conan, Fallon, Ferguson, Kimmel, Colbert are much cheaper hosts with lower budgets.
Leno had his lowest rated summer and lowest rated Q2 ever. Google it. The ratings have fallen since. Can you say “the handwriting’s on the wall”?
“Conan, Fallon, Ferguson, Kimmel, Colbert”.
Each one of those guys is more entertaining (in their own way) than Leno. I realize as a 20-something I’m not Leno’s target demographic, but it is amazing how stale he has become. He should try to spice things up a little bit.
However, I’m not sure if trying to appeal to the younger demographic is even smart for NBC to consider when it comes to The Tonight Show. Conan and Stewart/Colbert will have that group pretty much wrapped up. Not to mention the demographic Leno appeals to still regularly watches TV, rather than spending all of their time on the internet, playing video games, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if Leno stuck around for another decade.
Don’t count on it. Money is the name of the game and according to several articles the Leno Tonight Show is losing $. The ratings keep going down = losing even more $.
Can’t wait for Conan to come back.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Jay Leno is STILL Number ONE, overall.
Keyword: Overall
Go Jay Leno.
These so-called age demos are a form of discrimination and ONLY focus on the limited restricted groupings and NOT the overall TOTAL picture. Keep up the great work, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
You are truly clueless. Leno is 33% behind where Conan was in the only demographic that matters. At the rate this is going, Leno will soon be behind Dave, too.
Here’s the truly ugly thing for NBC: Leno continues dropping like a stone, due to old age setting in and the fact that he’s been outed as a not-so-nice-guy who formerly traded on likeability.
Where does it end?
And, NBC, get a load of this: lots of people have refused to watch your network since Conan-gate. Are you so stupid that you don’t realize that part of your problems in primetime stem from fall out from what Zucker and Leno did you O’Brien?
It’s time for them both to RETIRE!!
n this down economy who has the money? Who has the time to watch TV? Who can afford to go out and buy anything? It sure isn’t the 18-34 crowd THEY’RE BROKE! NBC did the right thing, instead of trying to cater to the younger crowd, they put someone in that attracts an older group of viewers. On Friday nights networks should be scheduling programs for older viewers, think about it, what 18-34 year old is at home watching TV on a Friday night or up at 11:30 watching TV weeknights.
All it takes is a little common sense on the part of networks.
I’m sure they are down this week because they are both in reruns.What ever happened to the guest host?The whole dust up over late night hosts has been really stupid.Leterman and Kimmel showed their asses over it and in the end nothing changed.Leno came back and is the higher rated of them all.Sure they are all down,welcome to the 21st century and to an audience too unsophisticated to support a Johnny Carson brillance so we’re left with what we’ve got.Combine that with a segmented population watching a hundred channels and yeah it will be down for them all.
Nightline is no. 1, consistently beating both Jay and Dave, who are in a dead heat for last.
It really looks bad for Jay to do worse than Conan after he said, “It’s all about ratings” when he was forcing O’Brien out.
They’re not “all down.” Kimmel is up from where he was last year, Jon Stewart and steve Colbert are getting their highest ratings ever…not sure about Craig Ferguson. Fallon is doing well.
What’s down are Jay (a lot) and Dave (a bit) This isn’t a television or societal trend, it’s America saying they’re sick of certain somebodies.
For the first time in my lifetime, it doesn’t even cross my mind to turn on THE TONIGHT SHOW at 1135p. It’s like the franchise has ceased to exist for me. Hmm… Conan, Dave or sleep?
I do wanna know the pussy who rote that crap. COnan was extremely funny at 12:30, 11:30? No chance, and probably funny on TBS. And according to Steve Martin, Letterman is number one in the ratings again. But, anyone who diagrees can suck it.