Looking at last year’s August ratings shows that The Late Show and The Tonight Show were averaging that many 18-49 viewers last summer too (well actually, Letterman was a tenth of a point below what he got this week, so he improved slightly in that demo). As for overall viewership, The Tonight Show is down almost one and a half million viewers (to be expected since Conan apparently isn’t really scoring with the older audiences), while Dave is up nearly a million. So to summarize Dave’s seen a small improvement in the 18-49 and a huge improvement overall, while Conan is matching Leno’s 18-49 numbers and not coming close to his predecessor’s overall ratings. That’s hardly bad news for Conan. The overall drop in viewership from a year ago seems to indicate that Leno had more than a few viewers who aren’t typical late-night viewers, so Conan could hardly be expected to keep pace with him. Letterman and Conan both have reason to be happy.

I believe there is late night room for Letterman and Conan. Why does it have to be a war? Wise up advertisers, do your homework and advertise to the groups that will buy your products, so find out which show has the best viewers for your particular product and advertise accordingly. We’d all be happier. We wouldn’t be having these stupid arguments about young viewers and old viewers. My viewing habits don’t fit into neat little compartments. The movie I saw today was Transformers 2. The next movie I will see is Public Enemies, and yes, Johnny Depp was wonderful on Letterman?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States

Did you only read the Huffington Post headline or something? It wasn’t the lowest numbers in the history of the show; it was the lowest numbers since 2005 (the week Oprah was on Letterman). It’s not great news for Conan either way, but there’s a huge difference in those two scenarios.

You are right that people over 49 have more purchasing power, but it’s the people under that age that are influencing their decisions by and large.

And if you seriously think that “advertisers are idiots” for showing commercials on TV, then you really are much dumber than you sound. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.

And does anybody know if the networks give any weight to DVR-ing or online watching? Is there any way to measure that? I mean surely demos would matter a a lot there, since companies buy up tons of advertising space on Hulu, NBC.com etc.

I understand NBC didn’t want to lose him, but if I were in their position I would have gladly let Conan walk. Fallon (of all people) has shown the ability to draw “Conan numbers” at 12:30. So 12:30 was set. And Jay over Conan at 11:30 is a no-brainer. Like Jay or not, he’s a proven ratings monster and likely would have been for 10+ years.

Losing Conan to ABC or Fox wouldn’t have hurt NBC in the slightest. Probably would have hurt Leteraman if anything.

I think Conan will perform a lot better this week, now that Letterman’s Palin bump is gone. This week, they seem to have evenly matched guests, so that might be a better test of viewer power. And next week, they’re both in repeats, so that’s a wash.

BTW, Leno’s Tonight Show average 18-49 demo rating last fall was more like 1.3-1.5, and you can’t compare summer viewership to fall viewership. It’s apples to apples.

And let’s remember that Conan is still a new host of the Tonight Show. Him and Jay are a different brand of humour, and NBC knew that going in. We’re not even a month into the change. To say the franchise will be ruined come September is quite a prediction. I’ll go on record saying I do not think that will happen. I guess we’ll see what happens when Jay comes back.