TONIGHT SHOW Scores Largest Weekly 18-49 Audience Since December 2012

NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" has delivered its biggest weekly adult 18-49 audience since December, boosted by a Thursday telecast that followed the NFL Kickoff Primetime telecast. That Thursday edition earned "Tonight's" biggest single-night 18-49 audience for any night of the week since last Thanksgiving, a night also boosted by a Primetime NFL telecast.

For the week, "Tonight" and "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" topped their ABC and CBS time-period competition in every key ratings category: adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, plus total viewers. Note that all Monday telecasts are excluded from these averages due to the Labor Day holiday and all NBC Thursday programming was delayed significantly by the NFL overrun.

The Thursday "Tonight" averaged 1.825 million adults 18-49 despite starting at 1:39 a.m. ET, the biggest 18-49 audience for "Tonight" on any night of the week since the November 22, 2012 Thanksgiving telecast averaged 1.848 million adults 18-49. For the week, "Tonight" averaged 1.217 million adults 18-49, Leno's biggest weekly18-49 audience in 37 weeks (since December 17-21, 2012, the week of the "Voice" finale, 1.264 million).

Jimmy Fallon registered his biggest 18-49 audience since the week of July 15-19 and a week of "Last Call with Carson Daly" encores attracted that show's biggest 18-49 and overall audiences since the week of June 10-14.

For the week, Fallon delivered more viewers 18-34 (280,000) than Letterman (113,000) and "Kimmel" (241,000), and also generated a bigger 18-49 audience (646,000) than "Letterman" (562,000) despite those CBS and ABC shows starting an hour earlier when viewership levels are significantly higher. At 1:35 a.m. ET, "Carson Daly" delivered a bigger 18-49 audience (384,000) than CBS's "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" (351,000), though "Late Late Show" starts an hour earlier.

Leno has now generated bigger 18-49 audiences than "Late Show" for the last 42 weeks in a row and topped "Kimmel" for 32 of their 35 head-to-head weeks. In total viewers, Jay has out-delivered "Late Show" for 46 weeks in a row and "Kimmel" for 35 of 35 weeks.

Fallon has now amassed bigger 18-49 audiences than "Late Late Show" for 47 of the last 48 weeks and prevailed in total viewers for 44 of the last 46 weeks. Versus "Nightline" in their head-to-head half-hour, Jimmy has out-delivered the ABC series for 35 of 35 weeks in viewers 18-49 and 21 weeks in a row in total viewers.

Ratings reflect "live plus same day" data from Nielsen Media Research unless otherwise noted. Season-to-date figures are averages of "live plus seven day" data except for the two most recent weeks, which are "live plus same day."

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