Late Night End-of-Year Ratings Revealed: Who’s on Top Between Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon & Meyers?
What To Know
- CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert narrowly led in total viewers over ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
- NBC’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers both saw increases in the key demo.
- On cable, Fox News’ Gutfeld! continued to dominate the 10 pm slot.
The late-night ratings are in for the last competitive week of 2025, and it was another neck-and-neck finish between ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
According to LateNighter.com, citing Nielsen Live+3 data for the week of December 14 to 20, The Late Show held a 9,000 viewer lead over Jimmy Kimmel Live! in total viewers. The Late Show averaged 2.34 million viewers (down four percent on the week prior) compared to Kimmel’s 2.33 million viewers (up seven percent on the week before).
However, Kimmel led the way in the key adults 18-49 demo, averaging 252,000 viewers (up 12 percent on the previous week), a significant lead over Colbert’s 181,000 viewers (down 16 percent on the week prior).
Kimmel’s guests for his final week of 2025 included Michelle Obama, Mia Goth, Will Arnett, Kamala Harris, Macaulay Culkin, and Jason Clarke. Meanwhile, Colbert welcomed Paul Rudd, Lesley Manville, Anderson Cooper, Andy Cohen, Kumail Nanjiani, St. Vincent, and Hugh Jackman.
NBC’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon finished the week with an average of 1.31 million viewers, down four percent on the week before. However, it rose 17 percent in the key demo, averaging 178,000 viewers.
Fallon’s final week of guests included Simu Liu, Jake Connelly, Alysa Liu, Finn Wolfhard, Martha Stewart, Nathaniel Rateliff, Timothée Chalamet, The Duffer Brothers, Caleb McLaughlin, and Carmelo Anthony.
Meanwhile, Late Night with Seth Meyers rose in both viewers and the demo, averaging 963,000 total viewers (up 12 percent) and 133,000 viewers in the demo (up 9 percent).
Over on cable, Fox News’ Gutfeld! continued to dominate in the 10 pm slot, with an average of 2.69 million total viewers (down one percent on the prior week) and 183,000 key demo viewers (flat week-to-week).
Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live averaged 366,000 total viewers (down 13 percent) in the 10 pm slot and 90,000 adults in the 18–49 demo (down eight percent).
Finally, ABC’s Nightline saw increases in the 12:37 am slot, with an average of 993,000 viewers (up one percent) and 132,000 demo viewers (up 18 percent).
Conversation21 Comments
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R
"Over on cable, Fox News’ Gutfeld! continued to dominate in the 10 pm slot"
Nothing quite says "success" like dominating over the ZERO other late-night talk shows that air at 10pm! LOL Faux news has to run Gutfeld early enough for boomers to watch.
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J
You'd better believe that not all "boomers" want to watch Gutfield. My "boomer" friends and I (in Texas yet!) all love Colbert, Kimmel & Stewart and can't stomach Trump or Gutfield. Don't generalize!
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Y
Bragging on this 😄
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A
Exactly. I and everyone I know despise Fox, Trump- we're the ones who marched against Nixon. Most "boomers" despise racism and fascism. Plus, the issue of generalizing. Morons don't realize that doing so is the genesis and staerting point of discrimination, divisiveness, everything the right does.
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M
Oh,, we're aware there are a lot of morons who are boomers. They watch Kimmel, Colbert and Stewart while waiting for their Viagra to kick in.
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K
Gutfeld is on cable & the shows on commercial television can’t even generate the same number of viewers. No one likes these leftie complaining “comedians”. Cry harder.
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H
Gutfeld's show is NOT late night, so the ratings comparison is worthless.
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V
Nothing says quality entertainment like stupid trump jokes every single night. Manshow Kimmel was more entertaining when he was guzzling beer and making women jump on trampolines.
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A
Exactly. It's SUPPOSED to be easier to get viewers on the FREE network channels than cable. Yet they don't even come close to Gutfeld's ratings with 1/10th the budget.
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A
There's literally only a half hour difference between them gaslighter.
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A
And he was the worst part of The Man Show. Adam Corolla was infinitely better.
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A
The Jimmy's and Colbert aren't on "cable tv". They're on FREE "over the air" networks.
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A
Nobody. The worst is jon stewart.
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H
Glad to see that Seth's numbers aren't that much lower than Fallon.
If NBC had a clue, they would get rid of the talentless Fallon and move Seth to the earlier time slot.
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M
Yeah right. If they did that, people would shut off the local news lead-in early just to avoid accidentally having that humorless gargoyle fountain of dreck on their TV screen for even three seconds.
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G
Who cares all the Late Night shows are losing viewers because they all are crap. They were good with Carson Letterman & Leno, not with those on now. Time for something different
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J
Can they really ALL be "Crap" ALL of the time? Sounds like kind of a sweeping generalization... I would have preferred a more careful, nuanced assessment.
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J
Again, as I stated above, don't generalize! You will be wrong!
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M
Now of them are crap, the reason is most people and younger generations just plain don’t have cable tv anymore. I have t for close to 20 years now.
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R
maybe a late movie?
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T
They're losing viewers on TV because it's now all on YouTube. They actually lost no viewers, it just moved over. You just don't like they make fun of your leader Trump so much is all. Matter of fact, Jimmy Fallon is the only one that doesn't really involve himself with opinions and he came out on third!
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