First on LateNighter: Tuesday’s presidential debate continues to be big business for late night.
According to just-released Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Wednesday’s A Closer Look Primetime Special on NBC handily won its time period, drawing 2,620,000 total viewers.
That’s more viewers than its 10 p.m. time slot competitors on ABC and CBS drew combined.
The live Seth Meyers-hosted hourlong special focused exclusively on Tuesday night’s debate, with each segment delving deep into a different aspect of the debate and the news coverage surrounding it.
Total viewer numbers for the Meyers special are likely to grow substantially over the coming days as delayed and online viewing data comes in.
Meyers’ strong primetime numbers come on the heels of this morning’s news that The Daily Show’s live post-debate episode delivered the Comedy Central series’ best live-plus-same day ratings since 2017.
And Stewart wasn’t alone. Each of the late-night show benefitted from a healthy ratings bump Tuesday night, with The Late Show With Stephen Colbert leading the pack with an average 2,765,000 total viewers.
“A Closer Look” is led by Sal Gentile, the head writer for the segment as well as Meyers and Late Night’s overall head writer Alex Baze. The segment has drawn more than 3 billion views since it debuted on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2015. New installments of the segment air three days a week
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We tried to watch but turned it off after about 10 minutes. It was unwatchable.