Late-night comic hacks have nowhere near the impact on pop culture as they think. Most want to blame the Chinese Wuflu. But that’s not the case.
First, let’s look at the Neilsen numbers; Yahoo reported the abysmal numbers almost with glee.
CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” has captured the title of the most-watched late-night program during the 2019-2020 season, according to Nielsen.
The late-night program notched an average of 3.6 million viewers throughout the entire season. The show was also the most-watched amongst adults between the ages of 25 and 54, according to CBS citing data from the Nielsen live “Most Current” ratings through the week of May 15, 2020.
Colbert topped NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” by more than 1.55 million viewers, according to CBS. Although both shows tied in gaining the attention of the 18-49 age group.
This milestone marked the largest margin of victory for CBS over “The Tonight Show” since 1994. What’s more, it also marked the largest margin of victory ever for the show starring Colbert, the network touted.
Falling in third place was ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” with an average of 1.9 million viewers.
CBS and others say that new show formats are the problem.
However, the ratings came amid a time when the late-night comedians continue to adjust to a new show set up — one without an audience– until the pandemic subsides.
But as I will soon prove, the problem lies not with format. The problem is the so-called comedians.
To begin explaining how insignificant these Leftist clowns are, understand that The Hill reported that Greg Gutfeld beat them at one point.
“The Greg Gutfeld Show” on Fox News finished April with an average of 2.86 million viewers, marking its highest ratings in program history while topping broadcast late-night rivals on CBS, NBC and ABC, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The weekly Saturday night program topped Stephen Colbert‘s “Late Show” on CBS, which averaged 2.78 million viewers. It also beat NBC’s “Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” and its 2.09 million viewers as well as ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” which averaged 2 million viewers in April.
The numbers are noteworthy since Saturdays are generally the least-watched nights of television, along with Fridays.
Yikes. Depressing. Because Gutfield is far from being a comedian.
And to be sure, Gutfeld adjusted his format based on Wuflu, so all things were equal.
But let’s look at how all these “comedians” compared to those who sat in the late-night seat before them. Uproxx wrote of 20 Nielsen rating that will make your head explode. I pulled three bullet points from the article that puts things in perspective.
The first highlighted bullet point has to do with Johnny Carson.
- The last The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was seen by 50 million people. Jay Leno’s last The Tonight Show before Conan O’Brien took over in 2009 was seen by 9 million people.
50 million people saw Carson’s last show and 9 million saw Leno’s. This is almost a month of shows for the latest crop of hacks.
The second highlighted bullet point has to do with Leno’s average audience.
- The lowest rated average weekly ratings for the “Jay Leno Show” — NBC’s experiment with Leno at 10 p.m. five nights a week — was 4.8 million viewers. That was in 2010.
In other words, the numbers that represented Leno’s lowest would be stellar numbers for any of the aforementioned Leftist hacks.
Clearly, the Left no longer dominates the minds of the coveted 18-49 year-old demographic. And that offers Conservatives an opportunity to gain a foothold.
