QUICK TAKES - July 24, 2009

Who is really the fairest of them all?

On Thursday morning, CBS announced that “Late Show With David Letterman” earned a victory for the week ending July 17 in total viewers over NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien.” It’s the second consecutive week and third time in the last four first-week runs that Letterman has drawn more viewers and the first time “Late Show” has achieved consecutive viewer wins since February 1998 during the Nagano Olympics.

A few hours later, NBC countered that “Tonight” scored a 37% margin of victory for that week in viewers ages 18 to 49, up from a 29% win the week before. And that O’Brien doubled Letterman’s rating in the 18-to-34-year-old demo, despite Paul McCartney’s appearance on “Letterman.” NBC further added that “Tonight” outranked Letterman among adults and men ages 25 to 54, women and men 18 to 49 and women and men 18 to 34. The median age of a “Tonight Show” viewer last week was 47.2 compared with Letterman’s 57.5.

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Susan King