What are the age breakdowns for The Tonight Show vs Jimmy Kimmel Live viewers?

1. Ratings in plain numbers: who draws how many viewers?

Quarterly tabulations from LateNighter and reporting outlets place Stephen Colbert at the top in total viewers, with Kimmel second and Fallon third; for Q2 2025 the totals cited are Colbert 2.42 million, Kimmel 1.77 million and Fallon 1.19 million ^{[1] [4]}. Later quarter summaries show Kimmel rising modestly—LateNighter’s Q3 roundup reported Kimmel at 1.85 million and Fallon up slightly to about 1.23 million ^[2]. These are total-audience averages that exclude rebroadcasts and specials and derive from Nielsen data as reported by trade sites ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The 18–49 demo: the single most-cited age slice

Across the available reporting, outlets repeatedly highlight the advertiser-targeted 18–49 demo rather than finer age bands. For Q2 2025, Kimmel averaged about 220,000 viewers in 18–49—fractionally ahead of Colbert’s 219,000 and notably ahead of Fallon’s 157,000 ^{[1] [3] [5]}. In Q3 2025 Kimmel’s demo number is reported at roughly 243,000 while Colbert rose to about 260,000 in that quarter, and Fallon held near 170,000 ^[2]. These demo figures are what networks and advertisers emphasize; they are not an age breakdown but a single composite range that aggregates multiple younger adult subgroups ^{[1] [2]}.

3. What the available reporting does not show: missing age subgroups

None of the provided sources supply a granular age breakdown (for example 18–24, 25–34, 35–49) for The Tonight Show or Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Reporting repeatedly uses “18–49” as the proxy for advertiser value; if you want finer slices, current reporting here does not include them and Nielsen’s more detailed tables are not reproduced in these articles ^{[1] [5] [3]}. Therefore any claim about which show skews youngest (say 18–24) is not supported by the material supplied.

4. Trends and context: viewership decline and episodic spikes

Trade coverage frames these figures against a longer-term decline in the late-night linear TV audience. Several outlets cite large multi-year drops in the 18–49 shares for late-night programs—LateNighter and business coverage note steep declines since the mid‑2010s—although exact year-over-year percentages vary by outlet ^{[6] [7]}. At the same time, single-episode events produced big bumps: Kimmel’s return in September 2025 drew millions (a specific episode reported at 6.26 million) and ABC credited week-long spikes during Brooklyn shows where nightly averages exceeded season norms ^{[8] [9]}.

5. Competing narratives and potential agendas in coverage

Industry trade outlets (LateNighter, TV Insider, Variety) present the Nielsen snapshots as neutral metrics; business and partisan outlets sometimes use the same data to frame editorial arguments—Fox Business emphasizes late-night “decline” and monetization concerns, while entertainment outlets highlight audience wins for particular weeks ^{[1] [6] [9]}. Readers should note those editorial frames: raw Nielsen numbers are the same, but outlets choose which frames to stress (decline vs. spikes vs. advertiser value) ^{[1] [6] [8]}.

6. Takeaway and how to get the missing detail

If your goal is a precise age-by-age comparison (e.g., 18–24 vs. 25–34), available reporting does not supply it; the publicly reported figures stick to total viewers and the 18–49 demo ^{[1] [2] [3]}. To obtain the exact age bands you will need Nielsen’s detailed demographic tables or internal network/advertiser reports—neither are reproduced in the sources provided here ^{[1] [5]}. For most industry analyses, the 18–49 demo and total viewers are the decisive metrics cited in the press ^{[1] [3]}.

Limitations: this analysis relies only on the bundled trade and news reporting provided; claims here are drawn from those items and do not include raw Nielsen data or proprietary demographic slices that the current sources do not publish ^{[1] [2] [3]}.