Nightline Reverses The Aging Process

Pop quiz: Which late-night show has the youngest audience? How about the Tonight Show with Jay Leno? Or the Late Show with David Letterman? No and no. It’s actually ABC’s Nightline.

“There’s been a big shift in the median age of late-night viewers on the Big Three networks over the past five seasons,” Media Life reports, citing a new Magna Global U.S. study. NBC’s average age is 51.1, CBS’s is 51.0, and ABC’s is 50.9. “That’s a mighty tight grouping, but what’s more telling is the trends behind the numbers,” the story says.

While the audiences for Leno and Letterman age along with their hosts, Nightline’s efforts to court a younger demo are apparently paying off. “That show’s median age has fallen 0.7 years since last year… The show is now 1.1 years younger than it was in 2001-2002, and at its second-youngest over the five-year period, behind a 49.8 during 2002-2003, when median ages for all news shows dipped slightly as people tuned in for updates about the new war in Iraq.” More…

> Also: B&C: Nightline Ratings Rise