Before Late Night Became A Toilet of Trumpster Fire Jokes -- The 1991-2015 Late Night Talk Show Ratings

Written Nauseous of Political Jokes by Bridger Cunningham

Long before late night talk shows became the butt of presidential jokes, the genre became a hotbed of a variety of everyday humor and life.  As early as 1962, Johnny Carson hosted celebrities and discussed entertainment and social issues with humor.  The genre began to expand in the 80's as NBC expanded additional hours for viewers willing to stay up and laugh.  Following Carson's retirement in 1992, the race was on between comedian Jay Leno and Late Night host David Letterman.  After Leno was selected, Letterman defected from NBC the following season and was poached by CBS to give NBC fierce competition.

Prior to The Late Show forming on CBS, NBC cornered the market in the genre, save for odd syndicated entries.  As the 90's raged on, cable circuits and ABC entered the arena, albeit to softer results.  Flash forward to the mid-2000's, and cable outlet Comedy Central became an aggressive player as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report gained traction.  NBC remained dominant in the late night realm, a contrast to its earlier schedule which fell into 4th place disarray among the networks.  Eyeing Leno's successful franchise, which regularly delivered over 5 million viewers, the network launched an experiment by offering Leno an opportunity to host a talk show during the 10pm hour throughout the entire week, handing Conan O'Brien the Tonight Show.

Leno's ratings immediately collapsed, and the Tonight Show hemorrhaged 40% of its audience under O'Brien.  After NBC canned Leno's show, they made a controversial decision and replaced O'Brien with Leno, offering him a return to Late Night.  O'Brien balked at the offer and walked away from NBC, taking his talents to TBS.  Ratings bounced back, but they never recovered to their glory days prior to 2009.  Networks switching hosts exhibited effects on ratings and ranks, with Leno bowing out in early 2014 after 22 years in his post on the Tonight Show.  The following season, Letterman also retired after a 22-year run, and television changed forever in the late night realm.

Please allow TVRG to apologize in advance as data beyond 2015 is difficult.  However, if one wants to gauge how the ratings are doing on shows, just Google "Colbert" and "Trump."  A plethora of articles will populate.

Source:http://graphics.wsj.com/late-night-tv-show-ratings-and-hosts/

Late Night Battle: Do Live Ratings Tell It All?

To change things up a little bit, I've created an Adobe Spark page and embedded it here. Click on it to begin and enjoy a slightly different viewing experience!

Tuesday Ratings: Rudolph Beats Scripted, The Huangs Fall Off the Boat

Below are the ratings for Tuesday, December 1, 2015. Late night ratings and analysis to follow.

Time	Show Name	Network	A 18-49 Rating	Preliminary Half-Hours	Last Airing’s A18-49
8	The Voice	NBC	2.6	2.5/2.6	2.6
	Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer	CBS	2.3	2.2/2.5	2.1 (for NCIS)
	The Flash	The CW	1.4	1.3/1.4	1.5
	The Muppets	ABC	1.1		1.2
	Grandfathered	FOX	0.9		1.0
8:30	Fresh Off The Boat	ABC	1.2		1.4
	The Grinder	FOX	0.7		0.7
9	Chicago Med	NBC	2.0	2.0/1.9	1.9
	Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD	ABC	1.3	1.3/1.2	1.4
	Limitless (R) ------------------- Scream Queens	CBS ------ FOX	1.1 -----------  0.9	1.2/0.9 -----------	N/A -------- 1.0
	iZombie	The CW	0.6	0.7/0.6	0.5
10	Chicago Fire	NBC	1.9	1.8/1.9	1.8
	Shark Tank (R)	ABC	0.9	0.8/0.9	0.7
	NCIS: NO (R)	CBS	0.9	0.9/0.9	N/A
11:30	The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon	NBC	1.1		1.1
	Jimmy Kimmel Live	ABC	0.5		0.5
	Late Show with Stephen Colbert (R)	CBS	0.3		0.4 (R)
12:30	Late Night with Seth Meyers (R)	NBC	0.5		0.5 (R)
	Nightline	ABC	0.3		0.3
	Late Late Show with James Corden	CBS	0.1		0.2

Promo from NBC's first airing on December 4, 1964,
found on Wikipedia.

CBS's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special (2.3) beat everything except The Voice (2.6) on Tuesday, despite the fact that its first airing was in 1964 and virtually everyone knows how it goes. Just amazing. Enjoy the promotional poster to the right. Elsewhere on CBS, a rerun of Limitless was boosted (1.1) by its lead-in, possibly showing that it could benefit from a stronger lead-in. Speaking of which, it beat out the rerun of NCIS: NO (0.9).

Elsewhere on NBC, the Chicago duo did well (2.0 for Med, 1.9 for Fire) and is possibly the best pairing on broadcast television right now (if not The Middle and The Goldbergs).

Speaking of The Middle and The Goldbergs, ABC should be very thankful that they're holding up on Wednesday so far this season, as The Muppets (1.1) and Fresh Off The Boat (1.2) are really showing signs of floppage. Who would have guessed these ratings? As the weakest of the ABC comedies, I wouldn't be surprised to see both off of the fall schedule next season. Following was the ever-underwhelming Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (1.3) and a rerun of Shark Tank (0.9), which more than doubled Wicked City's final airing.

Another Tuesday, another night of FOX going fractional, with Grandfathered (0.9), The Grinder (0.7), and Scream Queens (0.9). It would be sad if they have to renew any of them at this point.

Finally, The CW saw the first half of the Flarrow crossover (1.4) do The Flash's typical numbers, and iZombie (0.6) managed to rise a tenth--though it is at less than 50% retention and I'm not really sure why it's in the renewal talks. But what do I know.

Over on the late night side, a rerun of Seth Meyers (0.5) did five times better than an original James Corden (0.1), so there's that.