Arsenio Hall Earns Ratings Win on First Night Back on Late-Night TV
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Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) — It’s too early to call Arsenio Hall’s late-night TV comeback a success. But the premiere episode of his syndicated show on Monday scored a big victory over its competition in two key ratings demographics.
The Arsenio Hall Show earned more viewers than NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live in the advertiser-friendly 18-to-49-year-old and 25-to-54-year-old demos.
The show currently airs in 17 markets, including New York and Los Angeles.
Hall, making his return to late night after nearly 20 years, welcomed Chris Tucker and Snoop Lion onto his program. The episode also featured a surprise cameo from Paula Abdul and a taped segment with Jay Leno.
Earlier on Monday, NBC premiered its new game show, The Million Second Quiz, to an audience of 6.5 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The trivia competition, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, is airing nearly every night through Sept. 19.
The NFL dominated the Nielsens for the week ending Sunday. NBC’s first Sunday Night Football telecast of the new season, featuring the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants, was the most popular primetime program for the week, with 25.4 million viewers. The season opener between the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos, which aired three days earlier on NBC, also drew more than 25 million viewers.
NBC won the network ratings race for the week, followed by CBS, Fox, ABC, Univision, ION Television, Telemundo and the CW.
Here are the top 10 primetime network and cable programs for the week of Sept. 2-8, according to the Nielsen Company:
1. NFL Football: New York Giants at Dallas, NBC, 25.4 million
2. NFL Football: Baltimore at Denver, NBC, 25.13 million
3. Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick, NBC, 19.32 million
4. NFL Pre-Kick (Thursday), NBC, 18.03 million
5. The OT, Fox, 17.64 million
6. Football Night in America, NBC, 14.09 million
7. Under the Dome, CBS, 11.15 million
8. Duck Dynasty, A&E, 10.46 million
9. NFL Opening Kick-Off Show (Thursday), NBC, 10.13 million
10. America’s Got Talent (Wednesday), NBC, 10.03 million
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