Commentary
Surprise Headline Of The Year: Colbert's Beating Fallon
- by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 13, 2017
Late-night TV has a new king, and he’s not named Jimmy.
He’s named Stephen, as in Stephen Colbert -- and for the moment at least, he sits at the top of the late-night ratings pyramid. How do you like them apples?
The way the late-night score is kept, at least where reporters and columnists on the TV beat are concerned, is this: Every Thursday, the broadcast networks issue news releases about the late-night ratings from the week before.
I am not quite sure why it takes ’til Thursday of the following week to crunch the numbers and come up with the averages for the previous five-day week. In today’s world, you would think that these numbers would be available perhaps on the morning after the Friday night’s shows.
Whatever the reasons for this, the reports that journalists received last Thursday had Colbert and his CBS “Late Show” on top in the total-viewer count. “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” was on top in the demo race, however.
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NBC headlined its ratings release this way (theirs was in all caps): “ ‘The Tonight Show’ Outperforms ABC, CBS Timeslot Competition In All Key Demos For Week Of Jan. 30-Feb. 3.” The subhead (not in all caps), read: “Fallon Wins Five of Five Nights in 18-49 While ‘Late Night’ [with Seth Meyers] Beats Its Head-to-Head Competition for the Week in All Categories.”
The reason the headline ballyhooed Fallon’s demo victory is because the release couldn’t claim a win in total viewers. With Colbert in the winner’s circle that week, CBS promoted the victory in its own news release headlines.
“ ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ Momentum Continues [originally in all-caps],” read the main headline. The subdeck (in lower- and upper-case) read: “ ‘The Late Show’ Is the Most Watched Show in Late Night for the First Time since It’s Premiere Week in September 2015.”
All's fair in late-night love and war. ’Tis true: “Colbert” won the total viewer race. “Fallon” won the demo race. As a result, in the view of each of their networks, they’re each No. 1. Everybody gets a trophy these days, right?
Here’s the part where we report, you decide. For the week of Monday, Jan. 30, through Friday, Feb. 3, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS drew an average audience of 2.771 million viewers.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on NBC averaged 2.759 million. It is a close race.
On ABC, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” averaged 2.055 million viewers for the five-day week (note: “Kimmel” airs a repeat every Friday).
In the demo (adults 18-49), “Fallon” had a 0.67 (rating)/4 (share). “Colbert” had a 0.48/2. “Kimmel” had a 0.45/3.
When you look at these ratings -- the total-viewer count and the demo averages -- it is reasonable to ask yourself: So, on the scorecard that really matters, based on these numbers, which one of these shows makes the most money for its company? Not surprisingly, revenues are a deep, dark secret.
How did Colbert surpass Fallon that week? A look at the guest lists for each show provides no clue.
For example, Colbert’s scheduled guests were Leslie Mann and Lewis Black on Monday (Jan. 30), Josh Groban and Rachael Ray on Tuesday, Ricky Gervais and Christina Ricci on Wednesday, Dr. Phil and Michael Bolton on Thursday, and Priyanka Chopra and Thomas Sadoski on Friday.
Fallon’s scheduled guests were Ricky Gervais and Vanessa Hudgens on Monday, Dakota Johnson and Colin Hanks on Tuesday, Keanu Reeves and Judd Apatow on Wednesday, Kristen Stewart and Dan Rather on Thursday, and Gordon Ramsey and Alessia Cara on Friday.
Based on these lists, one might conclude that Colbert’s guests were marginally better, but another way of explaining the rise of Colbert lately might have to do with politics.
Here’s a theory: Colbert made his bones hosting a show on Comedy Central that was basically a running commentary and satire on contemporary politics and the media. One gets the feeling that Colbert is benefiting from the current political climate.
People will naturally tune in to watch him to see what he’ll say about Trump. As for Fallon, his frequent Trump imitations during the long presidential campaign notwithstanding, he’s the last late-night host anyone would look to for pointed political comedy.
I said it last week: It's hard to get excited about a 12,000 viewer margin. Let's take another look this week and next before we crown a new king. Given the sample size, it looks a lot like measurement error. Back when the Nielsen books were actual books, you could read the back pages about the margin of error. Ratings were never designed to be that precise. True, a lot of news anchors got fired for measurement error, but back then "rounding" usually resulted in a tie.
One thing we can count on in these strange times; ... If anyone with an anti-Trump stance scores well by any measure, The Donald's ring-kissing Flying Monkeys® will immediately descend, screeching "it must be a measurement error!"
The main takeaway from these stats should be not who is clobbering whom but the tiny audience ratings that these late night shows now attain among their "key" demographic. Not one of them is even close to reaching 1% of all 18-49s per commercial minute. If you discount those "viewers" who aren't even in the room and those who are paying virtually no attention to the ads, your average minute reach---if you "roadblocked" --buying time on all three at exactly the same time--- might total .8% of the 18-49s. In ancient times even Dick Cavett topped such attainment by about two-to-one and he was a late night rating flop.
Good old actual ratings books. I can remember when a sales rep, trying to make a point, threw the book out of the window. Instaed of being mad I was quite impressed with his enthusiasm and courage. We ended up friends for life and his son became a doctot that now traets me! I think the measurments are mostly accurate and am not surprised that HUGE amounts of people are tuning in to Colbert now. With John Stewart gone, Colbert is the most talented political comedian out there and operating at a high level. I have a feeling he will pull away from the pack and may hold that lead at least four years...barring him being poised by some people thinking of him as an enemy to be stopped.