Actually, these ratings for Letterman during the summer are pretty amazing. He usually pulls something like what Conan’s pulling right now during the summer, but now he’s pulling numbers that he usually only gets during the rest of the year.

And I hate to admit it, but Fallon’s gotten a lot better, and he might actually put on a good show in a few years.

letterman’s number’s havent seemed to change all that much from when leno was on. that makes me feel a little better. because i would hate to live in a world where someone flips over from conan or even leno to watch letterman…..watches for a few days and then thinks ‘this is a good show, i gotta make sure to watch every night’

They made a correction to say the Fallon was not in repeats…

Original:
“Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” scored convincing wins at 12:35 a.m. ET last week, taking the slot over CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” by a 30 percent margin in 18-49 viewers and 90 percent in 18-34 viewers. Fallon also delivered a bigger adult 18-34 audience than Letterman, though the Fallon rebroadcasts aired an hour later than the “Late Show” originals.

Revised:
“Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” scored convincing wins at 12:35 a.m. ET last week, taking the slot over CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” by a 30 percent margin in 18-49 viewers and 90 percent in 18-34 viewers. Fallon also delivered a bigger adult 18-34 audience than Letterman, though Fallon aired an hour later than “Late Show.”

As if they fixed their prime-time issues and they thought lets $%&* this up as well.

“Fallon also delivered a bigger adult 18-34 audience than Letterman, though the Fallon rebroadcasts aired an hour later than the “Late Show” originals.”

Fallon wasn’t in rebroadcasts last week, so this is the revised sentence:

“Fallon also delivered a bigger adult 18-34 audience than Letterman, though Fallon aired an hour later than “Late Show.””

But if we all agreed to this (true) statement, no one would be able to theorize doom and gloom for Conan’s career! We’d have to abandon the notion that Jay Leno might come back to The Tonight Show!

On a more serious note, a few of us actually just find it fun to see who’s “winning” the late-night wars, and aren’t really hoping for anyone’s failure and eventual firing.

I guess that isn’t horrible news for Conan, considering that once Jay comes back at 10, his level of guests will drop down another notch.

It increased 400,000 viewers though? Nice.

I didn’t see Michael Jackson coverage on what I watched of Nightline, and someone commented on one of these press releases that there was very little focus on MJ. There’s nothing really left to cover of the story anyway, seeing as how his viewing/funeral was Tuesday (or Monday, I forget) two weeks ago, and nothing has happened since.

Also, and I admit to not knowing at all, was Nightline still Michael Jackson focused last week? If so, their numbers cannot be projected to the future reliably.

Bottom line:

NBC “Tonight,” 1.0 rating, 5 share
CBS “Late Show,” 0.8/3
ABC “Nightline,” 0.9/4

Conan’s lead is dwindling, big time…week after week, THESE 3 lines of the press release show the story.

Conan only increased his 18-49 lead by about fifty thousand viewers, and he actually slipped in 18-49 from last week. Neither CBS nor NBC really wants to address Nightline managing to win post-Michael Jackson.

Kimmel can’t seem to benefit from Nightline at all. He’d probably even rather have Conan as a lead-in.