I posted these about half an hour ago but the "technical difficulties" of which I write made them somehow go away.
Last night's ratings: Leno had a 5.3/12, Letterman had a 4.3/10 and Nightline had a 3.0/6. More viewers tuned in than usual but that's about the spread that those shows had before the strike. I suspect a lot of people are surprised that Jay did as well as he did and that Dave ain't all that happy this morning. He might become happy in the weeks to come if he can book better guests than Jay and/or if Leno's monologue segment collapses on him. Jay is under a lot of pressure to generate that thing every night and it won't be easier with all the talk that's building about how even writing for himself is a violation of WGA strike rules. I'm not certain if it is, or if it's an issue the Guild wants to press at the moment.
Tonight, I'm betting the numbers look a lot like they did, pre-strike. There's a lot less curiosity tune-in, people wondering "What will he do?" But this could change over the weeks. I still think the strike will be over sooner than the dire forecasts are predicting but we certainly have a number of weeks ahead of us and NBC ain't gonna break and make an interim contract any time soon.
In other news: Conan had a 2.5/8, Ferguson had a 1.9/6 and Kimmel had a 1.4/4. Those are more or less pre-strike numbers, though Kimmel's is a bit lower than the norm.
But none of these are the numbers you care about. You want to know the final tally in our Utterly Unscientific Poll in which thousands of you voted. Here are those numbers and I'll leave you to decide for yourself what they indicate. Me, I'm leaning towards, "Not much…but isn't it fun to vote like this?"
