Late Night Ratings: Week of Feb. 19, 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! took advantage of its competition being dark for the full week, and won the late-night TV ratings race for the week of Feb. 19, 2024. JKL won the week both in total viewers and in the key P18-49 demographic.

ABC’s 11:35 p.m. offering averaged 1,730,000 total viewers and 191,000 P18-49 viewers this past week. Compared with the week prior, that’s a +19% gain in total viewers and a +22% gain in P18-49 viewers.

NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired exclusively repeat episodes during the week of Feb. 19. The Late Show’s repeats averaged 1,325,000 total viewers and 162,000 P18-49 viewers, while The Tonight Show’s repeats averaged 1,081,000 total viewers and 187,000 P18-49 viewers.

ABC’s Nightline, like its Jimmy Kimmel Live! lead-in, aired original episodes this week. The half-hour late night news program averaged the most total viewers at 12:37 a.m. this past week (870,000), a +8% gain from the week before. It averaged 99,000 P18-49 viewers, a +10% gain from the week before, but second behind NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers (131,000).

The aforementioned Late Night and CBS’ After Midnight, similar to their respective lead-ins, were also dark and aired repeats at 12:37 a.m. Late Night’s repeats averaged 661,000 total viewers and 131,000 P18-49 viewers, while After Midnight’s repeats averaged 543,000 total viewers and 90,000 P18-49 viewers.

A major late-night TV story remains Jon Stewart’s weekly stint Monday nights at The Daily Show anchor desk. The second week of the show’s 29th season continued to ride the halo of Stewart’s return, with The Daily Show averaging 671,000 total viewers and 130,000 P18-49, per live-plus-same-day data from Nielsen. That’s a +9% gain in total viewers but an -11% decline in P18-49 viewers from the week prior. Those numbers will rise dramatically once delayed data arrives this week.

*With the exception of The Daily Show, each of these late night offerings aired on five days last week — the week of Feb. 19. However, CBS’ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, After Midnight, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Late Night with Seth Meyers exclusively aired repeats this past week. ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s weekly ratings are based on four days (Monday featured a repeat), while Nightline’s are based on all five days.

Live+SD ratings (18-49 demo)

Live+SD ratings (Viewers 2+)