Nearly a month after Stephen Colbert bid farewell to CBS’ “The Late Show,” a new late night hierarchy is beginning to take form as the absence of the ratings favorite boosts its remaining peers to viewership highs.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live” seems to have absorbed a fair amount of Colbert’s audience so far, with the ABC late night show enjoying its most-watched season in eight years with 2.02 million viewers, rising 24% in total viewers over last year’s viewership of 1.63 million and 29% in the key 18-49 demo over comparable weeks last season.
It’s Kimmel who has taken Colbert’s place and become the new late night ratings winner, pushing past NBC peers “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” This ratings dominance, however, has been notably skewed by lead-ins from the NBA Finals, which wrapped up Saturday as the most-watched championship series since ’98.
That said, both NBC shows have also seen a boost in Colbert’s absence, with Fallon noting a 19% uptick in total viewers to average 1.3 million viewers and a 42% rise in demo viewers, per figures from May 25 — the first week without Colbert on air — through June 15 when compared to last year. Likewise, viewership for “Late Night with Seth Meyers” — which averages 767,000 — is up 3% from its second quarter average and 7% when compared to the same dates last year.
While late night has faced declining ratings for some time, the recent boost for the remaining series shows there’s still demand for the genre. In some ways, Colbert’s axing might have sparked more interest in supporting what’s left; many still believe CBS parent company Paramount opted to cancel the show to gain favor with the Trump White House, despite the network insisting the decision was purely financially motivated. It remains to be seen how the new ratings hierarchy will shake out post-NBA Finals and summer hiatuses — though Kimmel seems to be filling Colbert’s anti-Trump niche — along with how Colbert’s absence could impact CBS’ overall ratings.
The ratings analysis below looks at data from the first three weeks of late night without Colbert (May 25-June 10), focused on the daily network late night shows. It doesn’t include weekly series like John Oliver or Bill Maher, or Fox News’ Gutfeld, which airs on primetime at 10 p.m. The figures notably exclude encore episodes, except for Fallon and Meyers, which both aired reruns the week of May 25. Comedy Central declined to provide ratings data for “The Daily Show.”
In the first week following the Colbert finale, Kimmel averaged 2.46 million viewers while “The Tonight Show” averaged 1.38 million viewers and Meyers averaged 758,000 viewers, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures. Ratings for the remaining late night shows followed suit, with Kimmel averaging a 0.21 rating, Fallon averaging a 0.19 rating and Meyers scoring a 0.09 rating.
Kimmel rose during the week of June 1 with an average of 2.72 million viewers, while Fallon went down to 1.27 million viewers and Meyers grew slightly to 772,000 viewers. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” rose even more through the week of June 8 with 2.93 million viewers as Fallon and Meyers remained steady with 1.28 million viewers and 792,000 viewers, respectively.
It should be noted that Kimmel benefitted from lead-ins for both the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup, which both scored ratings records. Specifically, Game 1 and Game 2 — which were the most-watched since 2018 — boosted ratings for the week of June 1. Game 3 and 4 — which were the most-watched since 1998 with Game 3 scoring 23.8 million viewers — also elevated ratings for the week of June 8. Fallon should see a similar bump on the week of June 15, following strong ratings for Monday’s Knicks takeover episode.
Without Colbert, CBS no longer holds the late night ratings crown as it leases out the timeslot to Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed,” which struggles to compete with the likes of Kimmel or Fallon and slides slightly below Meyers. The show averaged 714,000 viewers during the week of May 25 and 635,000 viewers during the week of June 1 and June 8, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures that include encores.
As far as CBS is concerned, it’s just fine that “Comics Unleashed” isn’t bringing in nearly as big of an audience as Colbert, which averaged 2.15 million viewers per season-to-date numbers.
The network said its time buy model for the comedy show means going from losing approximately $40 million annually to generating $15 million in profit as Allen Media covers production costs and pays CBS for the time period.
Stanley Cup Milestones
The NHL Stanley Cup wrapped up with several viewership milestones, including delivering its most-watched final since 2019 with 5.2 million viewers. Game 6 averaged 5.9 million viewers, its most-watched since 2019, and the playoffs on ESPN networks averaged 2.2 million viewers.
FIFA World Cup gets strong start
The World Cup is off to a strong ratings start, with Spanish-language coverage of the tournament’s first 12 games averaging 7.5 million viewers across Telemundo and Peacock, taking 53% of the total World Cup audience in the U.S. English-language coverage resides on Fox platforms, which averaged 6.66 million viewers across Fox, FS1 and Tubi through the first 12 games — up 152% from the FIFA World Cup 2022 group stage telecast average across Fox and FS1.
Some early highlights include the U.S.-Paraguay match, which marked the most-watched U.S. men’s national team FIFA World Cup match ever on Spanish-language television with 9.5 million viewers. Meanwhile, the Ecuador-Ivory Coast match on Sunday, June 14, scored 9.2 million viewers, marked Ecuador’s most-watched World Cup match ever on Spanish-language television.
Netflix’s “Office Romance” keeps dominating
The Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein-led romcom dominated Netflix’s most-watched movie list for the second week in a row with 24.6 million views logged during the week of June 8. Its closest competitor was buzzy documentary “Maternal Instinct,” which scored 15 million views in its first week, landing as the week’s second most-watched English-language movie.
Its success might point to a hunger for romcoms, which don’t exist in full force the way they did in the aughts. Netflix also saw strong viewership for the adaptation of Emily Henry’s “The People We Meet on Vacation,” which debuted to 17.2 million views in January and remained in the top 10 for four weeks.
ICYMI:
- Game 4 of the NBA Finals brought in the biggest Game 4 audience since ’98 with 20.9 million viewers
- And then, the New York Knicks’ championship victory scored most-watched Game 5 since ’98
- Over 20 million viewers tuned in to Thursday’s Mexico-South Africa matchup, one of the first FIFA World Cup games
