With Jon Stewart nipping at the heels of Jay Leno and David Letterman, Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless says next year's election could propel his politically-minded "Daily Show" to finally beat the broadcast icons in the late-night ratings.
With a few caveats, of course.
Those caveats -- and there are a lot of them -- make the latest late-night fight a matter of bragging rights rather than an apples-to-apples contest.
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But a cable host scoring a higher rating than the longtime lords of late night would be a major accomplishment for Comedy Central, where Stewart and "Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert have cornered the market on smart, nuanced, politically oriented humor.
Leno and Letterman, meanwhile, have slipped behind ABC's "Nightline," the news show they once trounced in the ratings.
"The lines are going to cross at some point, and it's very possible that it's going to happen in 2012," Ganeless told TheWrap. "I feel like we are almost there. I feel like it is a cable world now, particularly with the viewers that matter to us."
She's talking about winning among 18-to-49 year olds, since Comedy Central says it doesn't focus on the total number of viewers, just the ones in the most crucial demo.
"The broadcasters stopped serving young adults a long time ago," Ganeless adds. "I think Jon and Stephen are unmatched in what they do. They have a way of tapping into the zeitgeist. People are tuning into them to hear their point of view, and and that's not what the network broadcast shows do. ... 'The Tonight Show,' 'Conan,' even Letterman -- they're very broad variety shows."
The broadcast networks and TBS declined to comment for this story.
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It's worth noting in any late-night ratings discussion that Stewart's show ends before Leno, Letterman, or "Nightline" begin, meaning he never faces them head to head. And that "The Daily Show" and its follow-up, "The Colbert Report" air just four nights a week, while the networks also air their late-night shows on Fridays, the lowest-rated weeknight. That drives down their ratings averages.
Finally, "Nightline" is only half an hour long, so it doesn't lose as many viewers to sleep as the "Tonight" and "Late" shows, which dip in viewers in their second halves.
Those types of nuances are important in a late-night landscape crowded with so many programs competing for so few bleary eyes that no victory is too small to go unmentioned. One sign of how closely networks contest every ratings point: Comedy Central holds that it has already beaten Leno and Letterman once, a claim the broadcasters reject.
Comedy Central says Stewart won in the quarter from April to June of this year, in the 18-49 demo.
