ABC Wins Late-Night Lineup in May Sweep

With its late-night lineup of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" at 11:35 p.m. and "Nightline" at 12:35 a.m., ABC ranked as the most-watched network in late-night during the 2013 May sweep (2.238 million). In fact, ABC has won 2 of the 3 sweep periods of the 2012-13 broadcast season in Total Viewers (May '13 and November '12).

• ABC outperformed CBS in two sweeps of 2012-13 in Total Viewers (May '13 and November '12) and in each of the three sweeps of the season in Adults 18-49. ABC outperformed CBS in late-night during the May sweep by 7% in Viewers (2.238 million vs. 2.094 million), and scored its largest advantage of the season over CBS with young adults (+18% - 750,000 vs. 636,000).

• ABC drew a larger overall audience in late-night than NBC (2.238 million vs. 2.223 million) in all 3 sweeps of the 2012-13 season.

For the complete 2012-13 broadcast season, ABC was the No. 1 network in late-night in Total Viewers for the 2nd season in a row (2.370 million) and in Adults 18-49 (784,000), beating CBS (2.269 million and 711,000) and NBC (2.199 million and 742,000).

• ABC won 21 of the 35 weeks of the season in Total Viewers (versus 8 for CBS and 6 for NBC) and 25 weeks among Adults 18-49 (versus 3 for CBS and 7 for NBC), more than doubling the combined wins of NBC and CBS with young adults.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live" (M-F 11:35 p.m.)
During the recently completed 2013 May sweep, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" pulled in its 2nd-largest overall audience for any sweep period (2.505 million), behind only the 2013 February sweep. In fact, "JKL" has attracted its three biggest sweep audiences ever during the 2012-13 broadcast season (February '13, May '13 and November '12, respectively). In addition, building over the year-ago May sweep for the 4th year in a row in Total Viewers (+31% - 2.505 million vs. 1.916 million), "JKL" delivered its most-watched May ever. "JKL" also grew over May '12 by 19% in Adults 18-49 (843,000 vs. 710,000) to its strongest May sweep in 6 years - since May 2007.

• ABC's "JKL" outperformed CBS' "The Late Show with David Letterman" in Adults 18-49 for the first time ever during any sweep period, holding an 8% lead over the CBS program (843,000 vs. 783,000).

• In Total Viewers, "JKL" paced within 300,000 viewers from "Letterman" (2.505 million vs. 2.811 million), slashing three-quarters of its gap with "Letterman" versus its gap during the year-ago May sweep (-75%), as more than 1 million viewers separated the two programs last year. In addition, after marking its closest finish ever with "Letterman" in February '13 (-789,000 viewers), "JKL" further narrowed the gap with the CBS talk show in May '13 (-306,000 viewers).

• For the 2nd straight sweep, "JKL" beat "Letterman" in Adults 18-34, increasing its advantage over the CBS late-night program to 15% in May (280,000 vs. 244,000) from 9% in February.

For the complete 2012-13 broadcast season, ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" marked its most-watched season ever (2.323 million), surpassing its previous high by 29% in Total Viewers (1.797 million).

"Nightline" (M-F 12:35 a.m.)
During the May 2013 Sweep, ABC News' "Nightline" attracted 1.664 million Total Viewers, 708,000 Adults 25-54 and 550,000 Adults 18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research. "Nightline" outdelivered CBS' "The Late Late Show" during the May 2013 sweep across all key target demos: Total Viewers (+261,000), Adults 25-54 (+54,000) and Adults 18-49 (+66,000).

"Nightline" was up versus the previous sweep in Total Viewers (+2%) and Adults 18-49 (+4%) - 1.630 million and 531,000 for February 2013.

Compared to ABC's performance in the time period during the year-ago sweep (1.623 million on May 2012), "Nightline" was up by 3% in Total Viewers. In fact, "Nightline" posted the Net's largest May sweep audience in the time slot in 11 years - since May 2002.

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