Byron Allen late-night ratings got a real shift on Monday, August 24, 2026, when Comics Unleashed drew 161,000 adults 18–49 in the 11:35 p.m. hour and beat Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon nationwide in the demo. The win came while much of late night was in repeats ahead of Labor Day, which made the audience split look more like a programming test than a one-night fluke.
161,000 at 11:35 p.m.
161,000 adults 18–49 put Comics Unleashed ahead of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which drew 158,000 adults 18–49 in its first half hour, and a repeat of The Tonight Show, which drew 154,000 adults 18–49. Allen’s CBS block was also up 14.5 percent in total viewers and 84.5 percent among adults 18–49 versus the same half hour last Monday, a jump that is hard to ignore in a part of the schedule that usually lives on habit more than urgency.
13 percent is the broader read on CBS’s two-hour late-night block among adults 18–34 versus August 2025 averages for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and After Midnight, while the same block was up 1 percent among adults 18–49. That split says the audience gain was concentrated where advertisers care most, even if the total block was not exploding across every age band.
Jelly Roll on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Jelly Roll hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live! in an original episode that drew 158,000 adults 18–49 in its first half hour, and that program was down 15 percent in total viewers and 42 percent in the demo from last Monday night. Kimmel lost 93,000 adults 18–49 week over week, while The Tonight Show lost 24,000 adults 18–49, so Allen’s rerun advantage was not just about one weak night on the competition.
Funny You Should Ask aired opposite a repeat of Late Night with Seth Meyers and delivered its second-best household performance since premiering in its new CBS late-night slot on May 22. An episode of Funny You Should Ask beat Seth Meyers in total viewers for the first time, and the second half hour topped NBC’s competing half hour by 13 percent, which points to a cheaper, evergreen block holding its own when the rest of late night leans on repeats.
Until September 21
The complication for Allen is simple: Comics Unleashed won the key demo, but CBS’s block has not suddenly become late night’s biggest draw. Until September 21, the schedule stays in repeats, so the real test is whether these numbers hold when Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Late Night with Seth Meyers all have fresh shows back in rotation. For now, Allen has a ratings case for the low-cost model. The next question is whether it survives once the competition stops rerunning old material.
