Dave, Don’t Look Back--Jay’s Gaining

Last Wednesday night, Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” camp was buzzing in anticipation of its first full-week, head-to-head ratings triumph over David Letterman’s “Late Show.” The week before, “The Tonight Show” on NBC had beaten “Late Show” on CBS four out of five nights in “overnight” ratings, which measure the top markets representing more than half the country.

But when the national ratings were tallied and released Thursday morning, Letterman squeaked ahead by one-tenth of a ratings point, and NBC had to put off its victory party yet again. Leno has never beaten Letterman for a full week, except when “Late Show” was preempted or delayed on some nights.

NBC executives believe it’s only a matter of time before late-night parity is achieved. Leno dominates Los Angeles and Chicago, and he’s made inroads in New York, Letterman’s home turf. Leno’s national ratings are up 5% over last year, while Letterman’s are down 10%.

“To us, it’s exciting,” said Gary Considine, executive vice president in charge of production for NBC. “Before, it was not even a competition, because basically we were getting our butts kicked. Now it is. If you look at the ratings every night, there’s competition.”

In Letterman’s defense, CBS points to mitigating circumstances--from the Oklahoma City bombing, which drew Letterman viewers over to “Night-line” on ABC, to the loss of several powerful station affiliates to Fox. Finally, there’s CBS’ own collapsing prime-time schedule to blame.

“Dave is outperforming the network significantly,” said David Poltrack, executive vice president of research and planning for the CBS Broadcast Group. “He’s maintaining his strengths despite the erosion around him. It demonstrates the basic resilience of the show, that it can hold up this well in this adverse situation.”

Letterman won his first season on CBS handily, beating Leno by an average of about 1.3 million homes per night. This season, Letterman leads Leno by only about 572,000 homes, and, since the end of March, by only 191,000 homes.

While NBC has made a surge in prime time this year, NBC executives prefer to credit Leno’s hard work for his gains. Over the season, Leno has completely overhauled his show--with a new set, a new stage closer to the audience, a new band leader, more cutaways and camera movement, and especially more comedy.

From the Dancing Itos to comedy segments taped around the country--Leno traveled to Indianapolis over the weekend--Leno is going for laughs. Many nights his guests don’t take a seat until after midnight.

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CBS, for its part, regards the whole race as a matter of lead-ins. Leno’s biggest night by far is Thursday, when NBC rules prime time with “Seinfeld” and “ER.” And due largely to CBS’ poor prime-time performance this season, local newscasts on CBS stations are averaging 37% lower ratings than the local news on NBC stations.

The “Late Show” producers “recognize they have to generate their own excitement, and they have a big handicap,” said Poltrack, who hopes to support Letterman in the fall with a stronger prime-time schedule. “They’re frustrated, as are we, by the prime-time situation, and they know and we know they’d be over a ratings point ahead if we stabilized the lead-in factor.”

And what about Letterman’s recent habit of ridiculing CBS, the way he used to with his old employers at NBC and parent company, General Electric? “It doesn’t bother me at all,” Poltrack responded. “The only thing I tell them is to attack us (the network), don’t attack the programs.”