Uh oh. There’s ONE person out there who doesn’t like Ferguson? Better get Dennis Miller to replace Letterman.

English is not even my native language but I understand him very well. Well, their loss then.

Craig’s Jon Stewart comment was said at the same time that he mentioned he’d like to be offered the job first so he could have the chance to refuse. “Everybody loves Craig” is a pretty bold statement that’s not really backed up by the numbers, not to mention that I’m the only person I know personally who can stand him, let alone likes him. A lot of people complain about his accent, of all things. Plus, if that half of the potential audience you’re talking about is the right-wing half, conservatives actually don’t hate Jon Stewart. He actually consistently makes the Harris Polls’ Top 10 TV personalities list every year, and I personally know a lot of conservatives who love him. Plus I imagine that if he took over The Late Show, it’d be a little more like his MTV show than his current show.

By the way, I’d like to point out one last time that, while they are called “key” demographics for a reason, total viewers DOES still count. In Johnny Carson’s final years, he was losing a lot of his numbers in the key demos to Arsenio Hall, but was still killing in total viewers, which is why NBC let him continue on until he wanted to retire even though Leno wanted the job, and pulled in better demo numbers when he guest hosted (in fact Dave wanted the job too, but some people at NBC felt he was TOO “hip”, and might lose the older audience).

Where did it say Conan has 4.7 million viewers ? His weekly viewer average for the season is 4.4 million, but that’s an average of every week he’s been on the show… including his premiere week.

Even so, Conan has constantly kicked the crap out of Letterman where it matters in the key demos. This is no surprise.

Yeah, at 12:05, Kimmel’s kind of dead in the water. By this time, the late-night talk show crowd has already started watching Letterman or Conan, and not many people are going to switch to him half-way through their shows. Then those shows lead into more late night talk shows, so there’s no chance of people switching to him once the 11:35 guys are done.

I’d be interested in how Craig Ferguson would fare at 11:35, with a higher budget and everything else that comes with the time slot. Conan used to smash Kilborn at 12:30, then Ferguson came in and, after a couple years, starting matching Conan’s numbers (even beating him occasionally). So it makes you wonder, if Letterman retired early and they pulled Ferguson up to his time slot, could he take Conan on? Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the answer. Ferguson admitted publicly that he thinks Jon Stewart should get Letterman’s job when he retires, so CBS (knowing that Ferguson is happy where he is) will probably give Stewart the job instead. Still, that’s an interesting ratings war too.

Week Ending June 29, 2008:
3.9 Total viewers (millions), 1.1 Adults 18-49

Week Ending July 6, 2008:
2.9 Total viewers (millions), 0.8 Adults 18-49 [late-night Wimbledon coverage]

Week Ending July 13, 2008:
4.6 Total viewers (millions), 1.2 Adults 18-49

Numbers from medialifemagazine.com

Yeah, I found it interesting that Kimmel did that, when Dave and Conan just kind of side-stepped mentioning Michael Jackson and Farrah in their monologues. I think Conan had brought it up later on when interviewing Snoop Dogg. But I think that the tone of the nation was that they didn’t want people making fun of Michael Jackson so soon. I think Kimmel is a talented guy and he just needs to find his way a bit more.

TSA,

I agree that Nightline is a terrible lead-in for Kimmel. He should have seen some kind of boost last week. I don’t think it’s wise that they have Kimmel straddling the 11:30 and 12:30 timeslot, so he’s essentially up against Dave, Conan, Craig and Fallon.

Also, it will be interesting to see how Conan does in the 18-49 when Fall rolls around.

I also find it interesting that if the headline is “Dave beats Conan in overall viewers for the week,” the post is filled with Conan bashers. But when it’s good news for Conan, hardly anyone says a word.

Meanwhile Conan is getting ridiculous 18-49 ratings for the summer time. Leno was getting a something like a 1.2 or 1.1 during the Summer, and a 1.3 during the rest of the year. Plus if he’s beating Letterman in total viewers now, that means the older crowd is starting to respond better to him. If the trend continues into next week, he should be in great condition.

Nightline’s just sorry that major celebrity deaths don’t happen more often. This also serves to show that Nightline is the worst lead-in for a late night talk show ever. Nightline averages about half-a-million viewers more this week, and Kimmel doesn’t see even a slight boost. They draw way different audiences. Kimmel’s gotta hope for Leno to pull really good ratings at 10 so ABC will move Nightline to the timeslot and give him the 11:35 slot.

Late night wars are fun when Leno’s not around.

So, don’t count Conan out yet. There’s going to be more back and forth in the foreseeable future.

I find it interesting that Nightline not only beat Dave last week in the 18-49 demos, but also has a higher season average as well. I just thought that as a news program airing in late night, Nightline would have a lower 18-49 demo.