Nightline Wins Big Over Leno, Letterman

Thanks to huge numbers on Election Night, ABC’s Nightline beat NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman in both Total Viewers and the A25-54 demo. It was the first time the program beat both shows (when they were in first-run programming) in both categories since the week of March 23, 1998.

On Tuesday, Nightline’s average of 10,690,000 Total Viewers was the show’s largest since April 21,1995, the day Timothy McVeigh was arrested. Its average of 5,120,000 in the demo was the largest since April 20,1999, the day of the Columbine shooting.