Gutfeld Visit Gives Fallon Biggest Delayed Viewing Gain Since 2015

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First on LateNighter: Greg Gutfeld’s visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week is the ratings gift that keeps on giving for NBC.

According to new Nielsen data, Gutfeld’s episode picked up an additional 484,000 viewers in the three days following its original broadcast, raising its total viewer average to 2,196,000—a whopping 28% increase over the original live-plus-same-day numbers.

That makes it now the highest-rated regular (non-sports delayed) episode of The Tonight Show since December 4, 2020, when former president Barack Obama was Fallon’s guest.

To put that delayed viewing increase of 28% for last Thursday’s episode in perspective, only two other episodes in the history of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon have seen greater increases: the show’s premiere on February 17, 2014 (at 34%) and a September 9, 2015 episode featuring guests Justin Timberlake, Ellen DeGeneres and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (at 32%).

Season-to-date, The Tonight Show’s average percentage increase in the first three days following its broadcast has been 5.4%.

As we’ve reported, Gutfeld and Fallon steered clear of politics and the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show in their interview, with Gutfeld later deriding those who expected fireworks from his Tonight Show debut. “I went on the show for the same reason I started [my own] show,” he said on his own show last Friday night. “Late night needs more fun. I was a gracious guest to a nice guy,” he added.

Even with the delayed viewing boost, Fallon still came in second overall in average viewers to Colbert for the hour, although the updated numbers now show The Tonight Show drawing more viewers than The Late Show from 12:15am-12:29am, the period during which Gutfeld’s interview aired.

The chart below shows Thursday night’s ratings for all three 11:35pm shows in fifteen minute increments:

Live+3 Ratings – All Viewers (P2+)

Ratings data © The Nielsen Company, used under license.