The first night The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beat The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in total viewers after his opening night, the glasses presenter went to get pizza for his team.
That was the first week of February 2017, not long after Donald Trump took office as President of the United States of America.
It must be assumed that some team members are fed up with pepperoni pie, as CBS has continued its dominance of the early morning audience for the past four years.
However, with Joe Biden taking over next week, night watchers question whether there will be another change in the long-running battle of ratings between The Late Show and The Tonight Show. There is also the question of Jimmy Kimmel Live !, which is now among its competitors.
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The Late Show, with an average of 3.46 million viewers, it won the 2019-20 broadcast season, which lasted from September 2019 to September 2020. This marked its fourth consecutive victory, the longest winning streak of the program and the largest margin of victory over The Tonight Show, which averaged 1.94 million, since 1993-94.
This continued for the past four months, with data from Nielsen showing that as of January 8, The Late Show average of 3.1 million viewers against Jimmy Kimmel Live! with 1.78M and The Tonight Show with 1.56 million viewers. These are what Nielsen calls “Most current” numbers, a combination of Live + 7, Live + 3 and Live + Same Day.
It is closer, however, in the demos, with The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! on average 0.3% and The Late Show with an average of 0.4% using L + 7 data until January 8.
The Late Show benefited from four wild years in politics with the former host of The Colbert Report becoming a trusted voice against the corruption and dishonesty of the Trump administration. There is no doubt that Colbert’s nightly replicas of the president helped him against Fallon’s more entertainment-focused show, with Kimmel somewhere in the middle of politics and foolishness.
“Stephen Colbert is better when he is a politician. Jimmy Fallon is the best when it comes to pop culture, ”said a dawn source. “Political culture has become pop culture [over the last four years] so it makes sense that a Kimmel or a Colbert, who have a more political mindset, would do better when everything is political. “
All of these numbers are a far cry from when more than 20 million viewers watched Tiny Tim’s wedding to Miss. Vicki on Johnny Carson’s show Tonight’s show in 1969.
There is a glimmer of hope for NBC, however, as many in the dawn world expect a little more frivolity on the screens as we move into the Biden government.
In the last nine weeks of the year, including after Biden’s electoral victory, The Tonight Show was No. 1 in adult demographics aged 18-49 in six of those weeks when it came to L + SD numbers. Live + 7 figures have The Late Show still winning the demo 18-49 in that period, in addition to a draw in the last week of November. ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! he also won the Live + 7 18-49 demo in the last week of September and the first week of October, with the help of an NBA playoff turnaround.
The Tonight Show insiders also point to their digital fan base. The NBC program has 27 million subscribers on YouTube, ahead of The Late Late Show with 25.6M, 17.6M for Jimmy Kimmel Live! and 8.29 million for The Late Show. Fallon also leads on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
But while sketches like The Tonight Show 2020: The Musical, who saw Andrew Rannells and Fallon recap the year with Broadway songs, scored 2.7 million views on the Google-owned video platform, it’s still mocking clips of Donald Trump that score best for the three presenters; Colbert garnered 11 million views on YouTube for his live monologue on Wednesday, January 6, after the attacks on the United States Capitol.
Last Friday, The Late Show was watched by 3.8 million viewers – its biggest three-day audience since November 2019 – and it will be interesting to see if this will continue for the next 12 months or if the early morning viewers will look at The Tonight Show for laughs. It may depend on the reduction of political tensions in the USA in the coming months.
The battle of classifications between The Late Show and The Tonight Show extends to 1993 and there were fluctuations before Jay Leno finally passed David Letterman. In 2003, NBC chief Jeff Zucker said, “There is no more war late at night”, but it has evidently not been the case for the past four years. Let’s see if it continues.
The best clips of the week
Lilly Singh came back with A little late for the first time in eight months. The Canadian comedian showed viewers how she was now filming her 1:30 show at a LA home, instead of a studio. She mixed skits with interviews and also gently sneered at her late schedule, as well as her budget, during the opening night and being off the air for almost a year.
“We thought we were very smart, we would put this content on forever, we can show it whenever we want, it will always make sense. And then a literal global pandemic hit and I was the only show that had a live audience. Literally, every day in Season 1, I received a million tweets that said ‘Why do you have a live audience’ and ‘Why aren’t you wearing a mask’? I filmed these episodes in 2019, when the only people wearing masks were thieves and Jim Carrey, ”she said.
Elsewhere, business continued as usual for the hosts before Joe Biden took office. Late night Seth Meyers looked at Trump coming out of the White House, Colbert talked about the threat of more violence and Kimmel reveled in Trump’s second impeachment.
Fallon put Anthony Mackie’s robot skills to the test, while Chris Rock was in the The Late Show.
There were also some appearances by the host late at night; Singh appeared in The Tonight Show, While Full FrontSamantha Bee from The Late Show.
Finally, before the return of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Tuesday, the Comedy Central program posted a video of Jordan Klepper’s experiences during the attacks on the Capitol. It’s funny and scary.