NBC packs the best one-two punch in late night television.
"The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" has dominated late-night’s second quarter of 2014, beating the combined ABC-CBS competition and delivering "Tonight’s" top-rated second quarter in five years in adults 18-49. Fallon's 1.29 is the top "Tonight" rating for a second quarter since a 1.57 in 2009. The 3.967 million is a four-year high, best since 4.030 million in 2010.
"Late Night with Seth Meyers" has been equally impressive, scoring dominant results and out-rated CBS’s "Late Show with David Letterman" in adults 18-49 despite starting an hour later. Meyers generated the highest-rated "Late Night" second quarter in three years in adults 18-49. Meyer's 0.57 rating is the highest "Late Night" second-quarter average since a 0.63 in 2011.
Need further proof fans can't get enough? Viewers would rather watch encores than originals from the competition.
The quarter ended with the week of June 23-27, during which Fallon encores averaged a 0.88/4, to convincingly beat both Kimmel (0.63/3) and Letterman (0.43/2), with both those shows running originals on four of the week’s five nights.
At 12:35 a.m. ET last week, Meyers rebroadcasts averaged a 0.45/3, to outperform the 0.43/2 of mostly original telecasts of Letterman despite running an hour later. For the week, Meyers encores also dominated Ferguson originals head to head by an +80% margin in 18-49 (0.45 vs. 0.25) and generated bigger audiences than "Nightline" first-runs during their head-to-head half-hour in every key ratings measure.