A new look at the late-night ratings race

It's been years since people paid much attention to the ratings competition between Jay Leno, David Letterman and ABC's "Nightline" (above: co-anchors Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir). That's because there really hasn't been much competition for more than a decade. NBC has ruled the roost since 1995, when Leno reclaimed the No. 1 spot from his CBS rival.

But now, with big changes only a few months in the offing, those rivalries are taking on new importance. In May 2009 Leno will sign off as host of "The Tonight Show" and Conan O'Brien will take his place, and Jimmy Fallon will take O'Brien's place (though he will actually sign on a few weeks/months earlier at NBC.com). Leno may return eventually -- though as I reported this summer, it won't be for a while -- so for the rest of 2009 all eyes will be on the race between O'Brien and Letterman and "Nightline" 2.0, which has seen its audience get considerably younger since Ted Koppel's departure.

The problem is that we've been using an imperfect measuring-stick to compare Leno and Letterman to the half-hour "Nightline." ABC publicity has been promoting its ratings "wins" over CBS and even NBC, but it's been hard to know what to make of those reports, since "Nightline" is only 30 minutes long. Common sense says, and research confirms, that every half hour that passes in late night means another few million people shut off the TV and go to bed. So there's something inherently biased about comparing a program that ends at 12:05 a.m. to one that ends at 12:35 a.m., since the hourlong show's rating is more greatly impacted by viewer attrition.

That's why, a few weeks ago, I asked NBC research ace Tom Bierbaum to track the half-hour ratings of all the late-night TV shows. My timing was fortuitous because we were entering the fall season, when shows were less likely to take vacation and we could thus construct a true apples-to-apples comparison: NBC, CBS and ABC with original late-night programs airing (with few exceptions) after their late news.

Here's what the numbers show:

11:30 PM-12 MID       (r) = show was in repeats that week
                    HH    18-49   18-34  25-54    Total
                    RTG    RTG     RTG    RTG    Viewers

10/13-19/2008
TONIGHT      NBC    3.7    1.4    1.2    1.8    5,414,000
LETTERMAN    CBS    3.2    1.2    0.9    1.6    4,479,000
NIGHTLINE    ABC    2.6    1.0    0.7    1.3    3,642,000
COLBERT      COM    --     0.7    --     --     1,400,000

10/6-12/2008
TONIGHT      NBC    3.6    1.4    1.1    1.7    5,258,000
LETTERMAN    CBS    2.9    1.3    0.8    1.5    4,059,000
NIGHTLINE    ABC    2.7    1.0    0.5    1.3    3,630,000
COLBERT      COM    --     0.7    --     --     1,500,000

9/29-10/5/08
TONIGHT      NBC    3.7    1.4    1.1    1.7    5,303,000
LETTERMAN    CBS    2.8    1.2    0.8    1.5    3,944,000
NIGHTLINE    ABC    2.7    1.1    0.6    1.4    3,701,000
COLBERT      COM    --     0.7    --     --     1,400,000

9/15-21/2008
TONIGHT      NBC    3.7    1.4    1.0    1.8    5,199,000
LETTERMAN    CBS    2.2    0.9    0.5    1.1    2,945,000 (r)
NIGHTLINE    ABC    2.4    0.9    0.6    1.2    3,225,000
COLBERT      COM    --     0.7    --     --     1,400,000

9/8-14/2008
TONIGHT      NBC    3.7    1.4    1.0    1.9    5,278,000
LETTERMAN    CBS    2.6    1.0    0.6    1.2    3,626,000
NIGHTLINE    ABC    2.7    1.1    0.7    1.4    3,843,000
COLBERT      COM    --     0.3    --     --       700,000 (r)

My thoughts about this data:

1. Letterman is facing a serious threat from "Nightline." ABC press releases, unfortunately, continue to mislead critics by measuring "Nightline's" 30-minute audience average against the other shows' 60-minute average. And this week, they trumpeted overnight "wins" over NBC while burying the fact that Leno was in repeats. But there's no denying that ABC is breathing down the neck of CBS. And it's not just in total audience: With its livelier mix of stories and younger anchors and reporters, "Nightline" is often competitive with Letterman in attracting viewers between the ages of 25 and 54, 18 and 49 and even 18 to 34. Not bad at all for a news program.

2. NBC is right to be nervous about losing Leno. We'll look at the late-late numbers in a later post. For now, though, there's no disputing Jay Leno's dominance in late night. He is soaring far beyond his 2007-08 season averages this fall, and he continues to pull the younger viewers in television into his big tent. For comparison's sake, I added "The Colbert Report" to these rankings just so you could see that "Tonight" pulls in twice as many 18-to-49-year-old viewers as the much more widely-hyped Colbert. (Yes, NBC has wider reach than Comedy Central, but not 100 percent wider reach. There are about 114 million households with TV in the United States, presumably all of which can get NBC, while Comedy is in 95 million homes.) The $40 million question is: How much of "Tonight Show's" success is because of the NBC network? And how much of that is because of Jay? NBC is about to find out.

3. Why should we assume Letterman will benefit from Leno's departure? I think the case could be made that "Nightline" -- which has undergo a complete overhaul and has the flexibility to cover breaking news and is never in repeats -- will pull in a number of viewers that swear to me that they will never, ever watch Conan O'Brien. I'm not sure those viewers will do ABC any good with advertisers, since I think Conan is a generational preference and that mostly older viewers will abandon him. But if ABC nets even 250,000 viewers from NBC post-Leno, that would propel "Nightline" into second place over Letterman in the psychologically important measurement of total viewers. I'm unpersuaded that those Leno diehards would flock to Dave's show; my guess is that if "Nightline" isn't to their liking, they'll just turn in early.

Comments

[ML]

I would expect all these savvy network execs would now be "thinking out of the box" at this juncture. They must be working on scenarios that will give them a leg up over the late night competition rather than simply sitting back to watch events unfold. Some, maybe far-fetched, scenarios: maybe Jay Leno (or Jimmy Kimmel) will open each Nightline show with a monologue that ends with "Live from New York, it's Nightline!" Maybe Conan's show will open each night with a "Nightline" parody. Perhaps Dave Letterman will finally really start "phoning it in," with a sock puppet sitting at his desk "mouthing" Dave's words as he delivers his part of the show via phone from home.

[Editor K]

Leno is sooooooo weak - not the hilarious stand-up comic he used to be before he became "the new Johnny" - but I just figured he had to tone it down so as not to turn off a bunch of viewers.

He's still more fun to watch than Letterman, who always looks pained and creeps me out.

Too bad Craig Ferguson isn't on earlier - with better captioning, since he talks too fast for most Americans to understand that thick accent.

"Nightline"? - is that even on any more? And exactly when does KMBC deign to play it in this market? - Oh, yeah: after midnight, which is too late at night for people with jobs to watch.

Maybe that's the plan, eh? - Let only the idle rich see it.

Hmm.

[gordon]

It might be unfair to compare ratings to the TDS/Colbert duo, because those shows are repeated 5 times a day. I often watch it at midnight myself, or DVR them. I also feel the Comedy Central duo actually demand a viewer pay more attention than the other talk shows, especially to the visuals. It's somewhat like the old POLICE SQUAD show that died in the ratings because you actually had to watch it instead of doing chores during the show! It's a lot easier to watch Dave or Jay or even Nightline, because they stick closer to format formulas.

[kenton]

Dave is still a zillion times better than Jay - his recent "work" with John McCain harks back to Dave's glory days at NBC. Pure gold.

The only way I've ever been able explain Leno's superiority in the ratings is by using the great Leone Baxter line: "Americans love corn more than caviar."

[wyn]

"Dave is a zillion times better than Jay"? Really? Says who?

I happen to be on the Jay side of the room and I respectfully disagree. Dave's slapstick attempts at comedy fail nightly and that's why his ratings have never risen to the level of Jay's. I am not really a Conan fan either, but I will take Conan over David Letterman any day!

[matt stechel]

You know that Dave is just sticking around so he can equal Johnny's total years on television. (or something like that)
its never been about ratings for him really. at least since he started regularly losing to Leno, so he prob won't even care about losing to Nightline.

The real question is when Dave does decide to hang it up (2012?) Does Jon Stewert take over (Duh, of course he does) and does he manage to take away viewers from Conan? don't count that guy out, more people each and every year discover him and the daily show (thank you college) and i can speak from experience that when something happens, I def wanna hear from Stewert. Gotta imagine thousands if not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands? of guys my age (mid 20's) feel the exact same way. this guy'll do terrifically on cbs.

Also in the 12 30 race---Ferguson will soo take that lead. Jimmy Fallon'll hang in there though if he proves to be good or semi decent...just as long as he's not a flat out disaster, he'll come off fine. If Conan can hang in there long enough to get discovered in years 2 and 3, I gotta believe Fallon can too. (again so long as he's not a Chevy level host and he could be---you remember how self pleased he could come off on snl from time to time? too much of that it'll be bye-bye in no time. but i think he's smart enough not to do that. i hope he is. how many guys would kill for that slot?)

Kimmel will prob do what he's been doing thus far, maybe he'll have a bit of a bump from Conan leaving, but i can't imagine it'll be too big of one.

Tonight Show'll still be No.1 tho, no doubt in my mind about that at all till 2012 rolls around.

[Greg Struss]

Personally, I am very excited at the notion of change in Late Night. Regardless of how you feel about Jay (I have always been a Dave fan first), he has done a remarkable job with "Tonight."

First, he took over for a legend on a legendary television show, took a few years to come in to his own, and has been number one for MOST of his run. "Weak," "lame" or not, Jay Leno has done what many in a changing television landscape have not been able to accomplish, he has either maintained or grown his total share of the late night viewership.

Heck, Dave even gave him kudos in an article for "Newsweek(?)"

NBC made a boneheaded decision because Leno is probably good for another decade or so and that is money in the bank. Jimmy Fallon is a pretender to the throne and "Dave" is starting to become fresh again. Just tune in and see.

Conan will do well. However, I miss the point in time when it was Johnny, Dave, or Dave and Tom Snyder. Oh well....