Weekly Ratings: Trump Address Hands Gutfeld, Colbert Gains

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.

The Trump news cycle continued to benefit most late-night shows with a political focus the week of March 2nd, with Stephen Colbert, Greg Gutfeld, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers all posting gains.

Colbert, who hosted a live edition of The Late Show after President Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, was rewarded for his efforts, with the CBS late-night entry grabbing a 10% share of the viewing audience, a number not seen in this frame for quite some time. Although his show’s delayed start time of 12 midnight that night did him no favors, Colbert still drew his largest total audience of the week Tuesday, helping to grow his weekly average by over +6%. His gains in key 18-49 demo were more modest at just under +1%.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! also saw growth last week, up +4% among total viewers, and +19% among younger viewers. That was enough to nab second place at 11:35pm across both audience measurements.

NBC’s Tonight Show was alone at 11:35 in posting week-over-week losses. The Jimmy Fallon-hosted show was down -3% among total viewers, and -13% in the demo.

After two weeks off, NBC’s Seth Meyers was back producing new Late Night episodes at 12:37am, growing his total audience by +31% and in the demo by +9%.

After Midnight also enjoyed an up week with the Taylor Tomlinson-hosted show posting gains of +5% and +22%. Nightline was down -2% for the week among total viewers but still managed to eke out a win in that measurement. That was not the case among younger viewers, where the ABC News show lost -3% week-over-week, and came in third.

Switching to cable, Gutfeld! on Fox News was preempted Tuesday for the President’s speech, but the show’s Monday and Wednesday editions were among its top ten highest-rated ever, with the show growing its total audience by +13%. The Greg Gutfeld-hosted show also grew its average audience by +5% among younger viewers.

It was a less rosy picture for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, which were both down week over week. Among total viewers, The Daily Show was down just over 1%; the show suffered steeper losses among younger viewers, dropping 9.5% vs the week prior. Watch What Happens Live was down 9.5% among total viewers, and down nearly 14% in the demo.

Complete ratings charts for the week of March 2nd, 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.