By the way, Greg Eckler sent me the following last night…
I hope you'll let us know about the ratings. It's a fortuitous booking coincidence on par with Hugh Grant on Leno in 1994, which happened to be the night Leno surged into first place never to look back.
I have suggested to incredulous friends that Leno could still take the night because Jay is just that dominating, plus the story just broke and plenty of people don't even know about it or that Richards is on the show.
Let us know if Jay can make a game of it. If it's even close, it will reinforce what a destroyer Leno has become.
Well, it's interesting. I think people charting such things sometimes place too much emphasis on that night when Jay Leno had the scandal-plagued Hugh Grant on as a guest. True, that was when Leno began outrating Letterman…but all Grant did was move up the date. Jay had been gaining and Dave had been dropping before that. Great ratings for one night do not change things all that much, especially with shows that are known quantities and which most of the public has already sampled. In the many years since, Letterman has had the occasional night when he had something spectacular to get tune-in — the nights he came back from illnesses, the first time he had on Hillary Clinton, Oprah's return to his guest chair, etc. All it ever meant was one night he'd be up and the next night, the numbers would be right back where they were before…sometimes, even a bit lower.
Last week, Letterman had an extremely good week against Leno. Maybe it was Impressionists Week that did it but that, coupled with a strong CBS Monday night lineup, caused Dave to tie Jay on Monday. (Monday is usually Letterman's strongest night of the week.) Last night, Leno got a 4.4, which is about what he always gets on a Monday. Dave got a 5.3, which is about a point more than he usually gets on a Monday…so he got some extra tune-in without taking anyone away from The Tonight Show. That's kind of the way it works these days. When Letterman's numbers are up it generally doesn't mean he's luring anyone away from Leno. It means that the folks who like Dave's show are watching it three times a week instead of two or are staying tuned for the whole hour instead of going to bed at Midnight. Or something like that.
Will the Michael Richards apology change the dynamic of late night? No, because that's just one night. But Dave's doing a little better anyway, and he might be on a solid upswing. He still has a long way to go before he can put a dent in Leno's track record…and since Jay's announced he's leaving soon, I'm not sure any of that matters as much as it once did. Not that it ever mattered a lot.