Which late-night hosts saw the largest audience increases in 2025 and by how much?
Executive summary
Greg Gutfeld’s program posted the largest year‑over‑year gains among the major late‑night shows in 2025 — a net increase of about +31.5% in total viewers and +24% in the demo versus Q2 2024 (LateNighter/Nielsen, reported by LateNighter and TV Insider) [1]. Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show was the only broadcast network show to grow quarter‑to‑quarter in Q2 2025 (up ~1% vs Q1) and also showed monthly gains earlier in the year (e.g., February +4.8% total viewers) [1] [2].
1. Biggest winner: Gutfeld! — cable’s sharp year‑over‑year climb
Greg Gutfeld’s Fox News program recorded the biggest audience increases in 2025 among the shows tracked: LateNighter’s Q2 analysis shows Gutfeld! grew +31.5% in total viewers and +24% in the 18–49 demo versus Q2 2024, the largest year‑over‑year gain reported across the late‑night field [1]. Multiple outlets relayed that finding and noted Gutfeld!’s position as the lone show up year‑over‑year across both key metrics in Q2 [3].
2. Colbert: quiet quarter‑to‑quarter growth, earlier monthly momentum
CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was the only one of nine tracked programs to post a quarter‑over‑quarter increase in Q2 2025, rising about 1% over Q1 and averaging roughly 2.42 million viewers across 41 first‑run episodes [1] [4]. LateNighter had earlier flagged stronger monthly movement — Colbert was up ~4.8% in total viewers in February 2025 versus the prior month — showing occasional positive bumps before Q2 settled [2].
3. Broader pattern: year‑over‑year declines on broadcast, cable outlier
LateNighter’s Q2 report describes an industry in which most broadcast late‑night shows were down year‑over‑year, leaving Gutfeld! as the standout gainer; excluding Gutfeld!, aggregate linear late‑night viewership fell roughly -9% among total viewers and -21% in the demo compared with Q2 2024 [1]. TV Insider and other syndications repeated that broadcast stalwarts like Colbert and Kimmel still lead in raw audiences, but the overall trend in 2025 Q2 was weakness for many network shows [3] [5].
4. Different timeframes: quarterly vs monthly vs weekly spikes
Be careful comparing numbers: LateNighter reports quarterly live‑plus‑seven averages; monthly pieces (e.g., February) show shorter‑term swings; and particular episodes can spike ratings (for example, Colbert’s cancellation news and ensuing episodes produced large single‑episode lifts later in July, per TheWrap) [2] [6]. The Q2 winners noted above come from LateNighter’s quarterly frames and Year‑over‑Year comparisons cited by TV Insider and other outlets [1] [3].
5. Why Gutfeld! may be an outlier
The coverage frames Gutfeld! as a cable, prime‑time adjacent program that benefits from a different audience source and network environment than broadcast late night; LateNighter and other reporters singled it out as the sole year‑over‑year gainer across both total viewers and the demo in Q2 2025 [1] [3]. That structural distinction — cable vs. broadcast and differing lead‑ins — helps explain how a show can post big percent gains even while aggregate broadcast late‑night audiences decline [1].
6. Limitations, caveats and what’s not in the reports
The LateNighter summaries and media reprints provide percentages and average viewer counts but don’t publish full episode‑by‑episode datasets in these excerpts; they rely on Nielsen live‑plus‑seven methodology according to LateNighter [2]. Available sources do not mention precise numeric Q1 totals for every show nor the exact base viewer counts used to calculate some percent changes beyond those cited for the leaders (not found in current reporting). Also, separate events later in 2025 (e.g., Colbert’s cancellation story) drove discrete spikes that Q2 averages don’t capture fully [6].
7. Competing interpretations and political framing
Coverage includes interpretive framing: some outlets emphasize Gutfeld!’s gains as proof of a right‑leaning audience shift, while others stress that Colbert and network hosts still command the biggest single‑show audiences in their time slots [1] [5]. Readers should note potential agendas: outlet summaries repeat LateNighter/Nielsen data but also layer political or cultural commentary when describing why audiences moved [1] [5].
Bottom line: based on the reports compiled by LateNighter and echoed by TV Insider/IMDB/Statista, Greg Gutfeld posted the largest year‑over‑year increases in 2025 Q2 (+31.5% total viewers, +24% demo), while Stephen Colbert showed the only quarter‑over‑quarter network gain in Q2 (~+1%) and intermittent monthly gains earlier in the year [1] [2].