‘Nightline’ Outdraws Letterman; Both Lose Viewers During Olympics

A week before ABC News president David Westin would single out the program as an example, production-wise, of the direction he hopes to take the entire news division, ABC’s “Nightline” drew more viewers than its chief competitor at 11:35pmET in recent weeks: CBS’ “Late Show.”

But NBC’s “Tonight” show was preempted by the first week of Olympic coverage, which likely accounts for the large week-to-week drop-off in viewership the ABC and CBS programs saw. “Nightline” was down 830,000 Total Viewers and the “Late Show” was down 1.72 million from the week prior.

(Note: “Nightline” ratings based on Tues-Fri average.)

The numbers for the week of Feb. 15:

Show	Network	A25-54	A18-49	Total Viewers
Nightline	ABC	1.53M	1.04M	3.35M
Late Show	CBS	1.38M	1.04M	3.26M
Tonight Show	NBC	–	–	–

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