Who is winning the new battle for late-night dominance?
As we’ve already seen this week, it depends on who you ask.
There’s the CBS perspective: Slipping each night since Conan O’Brien took over as host June 1 — from over 7 million viewers on its premiere night to just over 3 million — NBC’s “Tonight Show” was actually beaten June 9 in the overnight ratings by CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.”
Letterman struck again on Thursday night, besting O’Brien in the overnights, scoring a 3.5 overnight rating compared to “Tonight’s” 3.0.
That headline-making story seemed to signal that an 11:30 ratings race, once dominated by Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show,” would now be a lot more competitive.