When Stephen Colbert signed off from The Late Show for the final time, he received plenty of tributes from friends, colleagues, and celebrities. But one of the most meaningful gifts may have come from his two biggest "rivals," Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
In an impressive show of late-night solidarity, both Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon effectively stepped aside to ensure that Colbert's farewell received the attention it deserved. Both hosts chose not to air new episodes opposite Colbert's finale episode. The decision paid off in a major way, helping deliver one of the most dominant ratings performances late-night television has seen in years.
During Colbert's final week on CBS, The Late Show averaged 5.33 million viewers and 708,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 49 (per Nielsen via LateNighter). Those numbers represented a dramatic jump from the show's recent averages and were enough for Colbert to attract a larger audience than his two primary competitors combined.
Of course, the biggest factor was the Late Show finale itself. The final broadcast drew an enormous audience of 9.12 million viewers, while generating 1.46 million viewers in the key advertising demographic. Those figures towered over everything else on late night that week and demonstrated just how much interest there was in Colbert's farewell after more than a decade behind the desk.
Across the week, The Late Show posted gains of more than 60 percent in total viewers and more than doubled its performance among adults 18-49 compared to the previous week. While farewell episodes naturally attract heightened interest, Kimmel and Fallon certainly helped ensure that viewers had a clear destination on that night.
Neither host publicly framed the scheduling decisions as a sacrifice or something they wanted praise for, but the result was unmistakable. That level of cooperation is unusual in an industry built around competition. For decades, the late-night wars were defined by rivalries and battles for ratings supremacy. Yet in recent years, the genre's biggest stars have often shown a refreshing sense of camaraderie.
The ratings suggest fans appreciated the moment. Even with Jimmy Kimmel Live! benefiting from some spillover interest during the week, averaging 1.8 million viewers, and The Tonight Show posting modest gains of its own, neither came close to matching the attention surrounding Colbert's final episode.
Colbert's farewell became a genuine television event. And thanks in part to Kimmel and Fallon's willingness to give the occasion even just a little bit more attention, the longtime CBS host was able to leave the stage with the kind of audience few late-night personalities ever get to enjoy.
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