Late Night Ratings: Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024

Note: LateNighter generally posts late night ratings on a two (business) day delay, which is how they are released by Nielsen.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! continues to average the largest total audience in late night during the week beginning Monday, Feb. 19, and also finished No. 1 in P18-49 viewing on Thursday.

The Feb. 22, 2024 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged 1,677,000 total viewers. That’s the show’s largest audience of the week, +2% from the night before, and +5% from the previous Thursday night. JKL! also averaged 218,000 P18-49 viewers on Thursday, a +14% gain from the night before and a +27% improvement from the most-recent Thursday.

Thursday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! featured appearances from Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., and Rory Scovel.

NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert split second place in the Thursday ratings race. The Tonight Show presented a repeat of its Jan. 22, 2024 episode this past Thursday, and it averaged 1,191,000 total viewers and 208,000 P18-49 viewers; -6% and -8%, respectively, from the previous night’s repeat episode. The Late Show presented its Feb. 7, 2024 episode on Thursday. It averaged 1,193,000 total viewers (just +2,000 more than The Tonight Show) and 128,000 P18-49 viewers, -4% and -15%, respectively, from the previous night’s repeat episode.

In terms of digital performance, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’s digital content for the current season to-date has racked up 2.2 billion views across all social platforms per ListenFirst data, far surpassing its late night competition. It has more total followers and subscribers than any other talk show on TV.  

Hitting fast-forward, at 12:37 a.m., a new episode of ABC News’ Nightline averaged more total viewers (829,000), but the second-most P18-49 viewers (111,000) relative to the competition. NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers (a repeat of its Jan. 29, 2024 episode) averaged 746,000 total viewers and 153,000 P18-49 viewers at 12:37 a.m., while CBS’ After Midnight, also a repeat (Feb. 5, 2024), came in third with an average of 519,000 total viewers and 69,000 P18-49 viewers at 12:37 a.m.

Nightline gained +10% in total viewers and +18% in P18-49 viewers from the night before, shed -3% in total viewers, but gained +56% in P18-49 viewers from the previous Thursday episode. The Late Night with Seth Meyers repeat gained +7% in total viewers, and +16% in P18-49 viewers from the night before (also a repeat). The After Midnight repeat gained +7% in total viewers but shed -20% in P18-49 viewers from the previous night’s repeat. Both After Midnight and Late Night aired original episodes the previous Thursday.

Comedy Central presented a new episode of The Daily Show on Thursday, Feb. 22, with correspondent Desi Lydic wrapping up her week as host. The Thursday broadcast averaged 465,000 total viewers and 87,000 P18-49 viewers. That’s -13% in total viewers and -23% P18-49 viewers from the previous night, +12% in total viewers and -1% in P18-49 viewers from the previous Thursday broadcast.

Live+SD ratings (18-49 demo)

Live+SD ratings (Viewers 2+)