Nielsen: Obama visit a big boost for Leno ratings

[JimGinPA]

Last night's appearance by President Barack Obama was a ratings boon for The Tonight Show. The audience in metered overnight cities like Baltimore was the highest since Jan. 24, 2005 when the show featured a tribute to Johnny Carson, according to Nielsen figures released by NBC.

The last time Tonight scored a higher overnight rating was on May 14, 1998 -- the night of the finale of Seinfeld when the cast appeared on Leno's program. Overnight ratings for last night's show were the fourth highest in the 16-year history of Leno's show.

Bottom line, one out of every four TVs is use last night was tuned The Tonight Show last night. The overnight ratings from metered markets are not conclusive or final. But they generally match up when final figures are released.

Here is the release from NBC:

Last night's historic edition of "Tonight" matched the fourth highest metered-market household rating in the more than 16 years Jay Leno has been hosting "Tonight."

President Obama's appearance last night is the first for a sitting U.S. President on a late-night talk show. Also appearing on last night's show was music superstar Garth Brooks.

Last night's telecast of "Tonight" improved on the show's season-average 3.9 household rating in the metered markets by 187 percent.

The other higher rated nights in the metered markets for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" are May 20, 1993, the night of the "Cheers" finale; May 25, 1992, the debut of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"; and May 14, 1998, the night of the "Seinfeld" finale.

~snip~

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/03/leno_obama_overnight_ratings.html

[jenmito]

1. I'm glad so many people got to see it themselves rather than counting on the media to tell them

about it, in which case they'd only hear about one thing. :eyes:

[TeamJordan23]

2. You won't see this newstory on Drudge. nm

[firedupdem]

3. Good, It was an excellent interview and conversation with a

great President. He made me very proud last night. The interview rocked!

[JimGinPA]

5. Yeah, I Was Dreading Watching It A Little After Olberman's Blurb...

But it was a great interview.

[brianna69]

4. It was an awesome interview

[Cha]

6. I thought it should get high

ratings but I didn't know this good.

Did you hear Leno when he said, "Garth heard the Prez was going to be on and he wanted to be on, too"? Is that not the cutest thing?