Weekly Ratings: CBS and NBC Late-Night Shows See Post-Break Bounce

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

There’s nothing quite as reliable as a ratings bounce when a show returns from week or two of repeats.

That’s exactly what CBS and NBC benefited from as both networks’ late-night shows aired new episodes the week of April 27th, posting healthy leads over the week prior. That’s according to Nielsen live-plus-three-day ratings data.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert made the week’s most eye-popping gains, growing its total audience by 72% week over week. Late night’s 11:35pm leader also saw a +36% pickup among viewers in the key 18-49 demo.

Late Night with Seth Meyers, which returned from a two-week break of its own, also saw a nice bounce among total viewers, growing its audience by 43% week-over-week.

Meanwhile, last week’s primary beneficiaries of a dark week at CBS and NBC, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Nightline, predictably lost audience as the other late-night shows came back on line, with both shows suffering their greatest losses among 18-49 years olds, where JKL was down 33% week-over-week, and Nightline was down 42%.

Switching to cable, Gutfeld! on Fox News continued to rule the roost at 10pm ET, drawing 3,122,000 total viewers, basically even with a week earlier, while Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live dropped by 21% in the same metric.

Like its network counterparts, The Daily Show also returned from spring break last week, growing total its total viewers by 3% and younger viewers by 27% compared to its most recent week of shows starting April 13th. (Comedy Central generally doesn’t air repeats of The Daily Show when it’s on break).

Nielsen ratings, of course, are just one measure of a show’s popularity. Many viewers watch late-night shows on streaming platforms, and in clip form on social media and YouTube. (For example, Jimmy Kimmel’s April 28th monologue has been viewed more than 3.4 million times, outpacing his broadcast rating that night by nearly 2:1.)

Complete ratings charts for the week of April 27th, 2025 follow below.

Note: Time period listed is most common airtime for show.

Live+ 3 Ratings — All Viewers (P2+)

Live+ 3 Ratings — In the Demo (P18-49)

Ratings data © The Nielsen Company, used under license.