Jimmy Kimmel would never say The Late Show’s cancellation by CBS was a good thing — quite the opposite, actually, as he has been outspoken in support of Stephen Colbert and proclaimed late-night is “being poisoned” — but the numbers don’t lie. Both Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC and Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show on NBC have seen their ratings increase since Colbert took his final bow. The Eye Network’s ratings battle with its fellow broadcasting giants doesn’t end there, though, with CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil seeing some interesting trends in the latest numbers.
This year has been quite a tumultuous one for CBS so far under new leadership, from the cancellation of two scripted series to a daytime staffing shakeup and the recent firings from 60 Minutes’ staff. So it was probably something of a relief to see some upward trends in the ratings. Tony Dokoupil’s CBS Evening News finished the week of June 1 with 3.8 million total viewers — 560,000 in the coveted 25-54 demographic, according to AdWeek (via TV Insider). That’s an increase over the previous week of 1 percent in total viewers and 14 percent in the demo.
