On Jimmy Kimmel’s first night as a new player in the 11:35 p.m. late-night sweepstakes with Jay Leno and David Letterman, Mr. Leno retained bragging rights — narrowly.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Leno on NBC pulled in 3.27 million viewers, edging Mr. Kimmel on ABC, who had 3.1 million. The total for Mr. Kimmel was his second highest. It also put him in second place, ahead of David Letterman on CBS, who had 2.88 million viewers.
Mr. Leno was also the winner in the audience of most interest to late-night advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. Mr. Leno had 1.084 million viewers in that group to 887,000 for Mr. Kimmel and 683,000 for Mr. Letterman.
Mr. Leno has been the late-night leader for most of the past two decades, at least in terms of entertainment shows. The show Mr. Kimmel replaced at 11:35, “Nightline,” often averaged more viewers in recent years than either Mr. Leno or Mr. Letterman, but it enjoyed a significant advantage in being just a half-hour show in a time period when viewers routinely go to bed with every passing minute.
“Nightline” proved it will be a factor at 12:35 a.m. It had 1.72 million total viewers for its half hour, while Jimmy Fallon on NBC had 1.35 million for his hourlong broadcast, and Craig Ferguson on CBS had 1.30 million.
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/leno-wins-three-way-late-night-race/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.