We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...
Other than a short-lived period fueled by good guests and an on-air admission of an extortion attempt and sexual relations with staff members, Conan and the "Tonight Show" winning the demos had been the trend of the late night wars pretty much since taking over for Jay. Though I'm sure some will twist this into "Letterman's ratings drop due to scandal!"
On Friday Conan pulled a 1.1/5 (rating/share) with adults 18-49 in local Nielsen People Meter markets. Letterman and "Late Show" pulled a .9/4 on Friday night. Conan, as is always the case won with adults 18-34 too, and by a landslide with a 1.0 rating vs. a .5 rating for "Late Show".
But you don't need to worry about CBS canceling "Late Show" or getting rid of Letterman!
Wasn’t Friday’s Letterman a repeat? I only caught a bit of the monologue and it sounded dated, or was I imagining it?
Letterman always tapes his Friday shows earlier in the week.
Wy, I do not think it was an encore based on the data I saw, but I am not sure and I didn’t see the show. Anything is possible!
While Friday’s was not a repeat. It was pretaped. Many weekly talk shows pretape Friday’s. Tonight’s show and numbers will be verrry interesting.
Conan won friday, so i assume Letterman topped him the other 4 days.
I read that Letterman’s Friday show was taped Thursday too. Don’t know if that was true but he does tape Friday shows earlier in the week. The only thing that led me to believe that it really was taped Thursday was a remark Larry David made but maybe I was reading something in to it.
It was all over the Internet and TV on Friday that Letterman’s Friday show was taped earlier so that may have been the reason for the ratings drop. The assumption that nothing more would be learned. Tonight’s new show with Steve Martin should be an indicator of interest.
So far this ratings feud between Tonight and Late Show has been up and down. Actually I think it would be better for both shows if the audience shifted back and forth and there was no clear winner. As long as the advertisers got the numbers they wanted in whichever demographic they were wanting all would be good.
Late Shows on Friday are taped Monday.
I’m just relieved to find an article about a late night host being on top that actually has to do with ratings.
Hmm, tonites show with Steve Martin was an instant classic. Steve Martin playing a mean banjo. The jokes were great he came out swinging, my favourite was the run down of his scandalous peers starting with John Edwards and then on to Clinton and much more.
I tuned in Friday as I knew Larry David was on the show to promote the Seinfeld reunion on his HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry started off acting all uptight in normal Larry David fasion and then was grilling to dave about his parents being dead and not being around to see the current state of affairs. Then Letterman told him everything would be fine.
Knowing that taped Monday it all seems a litle weird and I no longer get what was going on. Unless it was taped Thursday after the incident occurred, and at that time it was too fresh for Larry to say much of anything as decisions had not yet been made to put it on the show. However, if this was taped Monday then who knows. Maybe he knew about this on Monday.
Oh and Larry David if you’re reading this? Go **** yourself you sick ….! LOL
The Late Show normally tapes Friday shows on Mondays. News reports relating to the scandal last week stated that Friday’s show with Larry David was taped on Thursday.
It’s not apparent if it was taped before or after the admission show.
Something did seem like Larry David was alluding to it at first, but it also could have just been Larry David being kind of strange/weird/funny on a talk show, as he usually is.
But no, it wasn’t a repeat. If any of Letterman’s joke seemed dated, that’s because they always are dated. His ‘topical’ jokes still include Bernie Madoff and the Fire Dave rally from 4 months ago. Not mention he never goes to long with out mentioning Larry Craig and Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face. Or the plenty of other jokes that he repeats (verbatim) days and weeks at a time
I’ve read that Friday’s Late Show is usually taped on Mondays, but I’ve also read that last Friday’s was taped on Thursday, after the admission. So I’m not sure. As for dated jokes, Friday’s jokes are intentionally as untopical as possible to avoid a situation where the joke doesn’t make sense anymore or something similar.
Stay tuned, in an effort to get and keep good numbers, Letterman is going to convert to islam and then the week after, will go to rehap after intoxicated rant against his mother is caught on tape and released on the net
it’s amazing when Jay was on the tonight show he had way better ratings then Letterman. But he didn’t have to have the president on or have a sex scandal to keep those ratings. Letterman I beleive made this public for the ratings.