Jimmy Fallon Dominates Late Night Television
It wasn’t like Jimmy Fallon had such big shoes to fill. When NBC announced that Jay Leno was out and the Jimmy Fallon would be taking over The Tonight Show, Leno was the king of Late Night, but not the dominating force that his predecessor, well, his pre-pre-predecessor (factoring in the whole Leno-to Conan O’Brien-back to Leno shenanigans from 2009-10), Johnny Carson was in the same role.
Since taking over the iconic Tonight Show and moving it from Los Angeles to New York, Jimmy Fallon has revitalized the late night game. In the second quarter (April to June) ratings just released, Fallon absolutely dominated in the coveted adults 18-49 year-old-demographic. He averaged 2.86 million viewers, compared to Jimmy Kimmel’s 2.45 million and David Letterman’s 2.41 million.
More surprising is that Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is up 52 percent over Jay Leno’s same time ratings last year in the adults 18-49 category and up 11 percent in total viewers. In the second quarter of 2013, Leno mustered a total of 3.57 million viewers, while Fallon has snagged 3.967 million. In the adults 18-49 category, Fallon hits with 1.29 share versus Leno’s.85 share in that same time. In fact, Fallon’s ratings are the highest for the Tonight Show since 2010.
But Jay Leno is now gone, and Fallon is competing with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and CBS’s Late Show with David Lettermen, and he is dominating both of his competitors soundly. That same 1.29 share that Fallon has built for adults 18-49 is emphatically trouncing his competitors as Kimmel is drawing a.67 and Letterman a.51 in adults 18-49.
Since February, when Jimmy Fallon took over the big desk during NBC’s broadcast of the Winter Olympics, The Tonight Show has scored 4.080 million viewers total, compared to David Letterman’s 2.636 million and Kimmel’s 2.613 million.
Fallon’s success is helping the rest of NBC’s late night programming, as Late Night With Seth Myers has posted a.57 share in the adults 18-49 group, which actually beats David Letterman’s numbers, even though Seth Myers comes on an hour later. And according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, those numbers for Late Night are the second best in three years, meaning that Seth Myers is outperforming the previous host, Jimmy Fallon.
These numbers have already led to some big changes as David Letterman has announced his retirement after over thirty years in late night television, with 21 of them at CBS, and Kimmel has made up some ground with viral videos and a strong nightly guest list.
Stephen Colbert has already been announced as Letterman’s replacement, and the host of Comedy Central’s popular Colbert Report will add yet another wrinkle in this burgeoning late night television war. One thing is for certain; right now, Jimmy Fallon is the undisputed King of Late Night and the numbers back that up, but the war rages on.
[Image Courtesy of NBCNews]
