Press releases from ABC and CBS touting their late night numbers arrived within seconds of each other!
Here is ABC’s:
For the Week of July 13, 2009
“NIGHTLINE” IS #1 FOUR WEEKS IN A ROW—FIRST TIME SINCE 1995
“NIGHTLINE” PLACES FIRST AMONG ADULTS 25-54
“NIGHTLINE” GROWS 21% AMONG TOTAL VIEWERS YEAR-TO-YEAR WHILE “TONIGHT” DECLINES -38%
For the fourth consecutive week ABC News “Nightline” was #1 among Total Viewers, outperforming NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” and CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman,” according to Nielsen Media Research for the week of July 13, 2009. This marks the first time in 14 years “Nightline” has placed first four weeks in a row in Total Viewers.
Among Adults 25-54, “Nightline” posted 1,473,000, placing first for the week to “Conan’s” 1,466,000 Adults 25-54. The two programs tied in the A25-54 rating with a 1.2. NBC’s “The Tonight Show” for the second week in a row experienced the program’s lowest total viewer and A25-54 averages since at least the 1991/ 1992 season. Among Adults 18-49, “Nightline” outperformed “Letterman” for second place.
“Nightline” continues to experience growth season and quarter to date, and year to year. Averaging 3.74 million Total Viewers for the week, “Nightline” grew +21% versus the same week last year, while “The Tonight Show” in comparison declined -38%.
Season to date “Nightline” is up +14% among Total Viewers, +3% among Adults 25-54 and +6% among Adults 18-49. Quarter to date, the program has grown +19% among Total Viewers, +3% among Adults 25-54, and +5% among Adults 18-49 while “Conan” declined -39% in Total Viewers, -21% among A25-54 and -9% among A18-49.
Topics covered on last week’s “Nightline” included: the murder of the Billings couple in Florida, the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, Jackson kids custody questions, the global spread of the H1N1 virus, the 40tth anniversary of the lunar landing, the suicide attacks in Indonesia, and the life and death of Walter Cronkite.
ABC News’ “Nightline” is anchored by Cynthia McFadden, Terry Moran and Martin Bashir. John Donvan and Vicki Mabrey are correspondents. James Goldston is the executive producer. The program airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network.
(Week of July 13, 2009)
TOTAL VIEWERS A25-54(000)/ Rtg A18-49(000)/ Rtg
ABC “Nightline” 3,740,000 1,473,000/ 1.2 1,240,000/ .9
CBS “Late Show” 3,450,000 1,326,000/ 1.1 1,010,000/ .8
NBC “Tonight” 2,710,000 1,466,000/ 1.2 1,380,000/ 1.0
Source: NTI
I think Nightline is definitely on a mini-roll. I don’t think people can say that the show is riding MJ’s coattails…last week’s programming featured relatively minimal MJ coverage, and it wasn’t the first story either. I guess NBC viewers are flipping over to Nightline?
Late Show and The Tonight Show are both down in total viewers by about a hundred thousand viewers, even though Letterman had Paul McCartney on, and Nightline has stayed just about where they were last week. It’s been a while since MJ died, and Cronkite didn’t die until Friday, so I’m honestly impressed with Nightline. Maybe they really are top dog now.
Conan’s demo numbers seem to be slipping more and more every week, although Dave doesn’t seem to be the one picking up his lost viewers. Dave lost around half a hundred thousand viewers more in 18-49 than Conan did this week (sure, you could claim that’s splitting hairs, but it’s still something). I think the CBS press release claimed the 18-34 demo loss was the smallest since Conan became host though, so there’s that.
Overall, it looks like the only interesting thing to come out of last week’s numbers are Nightline proving they can maintain their numbers post-Michael Jackson.
It still isn’t an apples to apples comparison. I’m pretty sure that Tonight and Late Show have better numbers in their first half hours than Nightline. Does Nielsen not produce half hour numbers for those shows and if it does, why are then never published?
Jim, Nielsen certainly measures these shows by the half hour (they measure and report in smaller increments than that), but we only see late night ratings via press release or the occasional trade press article.