Reception
Critical reviews for the show were mixed, with a Metacritic score of 49 out of 100, based on 9 reviews. The show's only negative review was by Robert Bianco of USA Today; "Monday's opening monologue, supposedly Leno's strong suit, was tired, lame and unfunny. In other words, typical of the real Leno, rather than the Leno of public-relations imagination."
The show was nominated for an Emmy award in the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series category ten times between 1993 and 2005. It won the award in 1995.
On September 22, 2006, The Tonight Show led in ratings for the 11th consecutive season, with a nightly average of 5.7 million viewers – 31% of the total audience in that time slot – compared to 4.2 million viewers for Late Show with David Letterman, 3.4 million for Nightline and 1.6 million for Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Two events helped Leno gain and keep the lead: a new set brought Leno closer to the audience and Hugh Grant kept his July 10, 1995 scheduled appearance, despite having been arrested for seeing a prostitute, where Leno famously asked Grant, "What the hell were you thinking?" The final telecast of the first incarnation of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had the show's highest overnight household rating for a Friday episode in the comedian's 17-year run as host of Tonight, averaging an 8.8 rating in metered-market households.
For at least six weeks following his return to The Tonight Show, Leno's program beat Letterman in the overall ratings each night, though with a reduced lead in comparison to his first tenure. Notably, these ratings were significantly less in the key 18–49 demographic than Conan O'Brien's had been at the same period during his tenure. By mid-2010, The Tonight Show was receiving its lowest ratings since 1992, an average of 4 million total viewers, though he remained ahead of Letterman, who experienced a coinciding decline in ratings. In September 2010, The Tonight Show posted its lowest numbers on record, with Leno averaging 3.8 million viewers. This was a 12% increase in total viewers over O'Brien at the same time the previous year, but still 23% below O'Brien in the coveted 18–49 demographic. For the first time in almost 15 years, the show slipped to second place in its time slot being consistently beaten by Nightline. In October 2010, David Letterman beat Leno's program in the ratings, for the first time since Leno returned to hosting The Tonight Show.
In the May 2011 sweeps period, all of NBCs late night programming had increased viewership. The Tonight Show received a 15% increase in viewership compared with the first 36 weeks of last season. In that process, it outlasted rival late night talk shows Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, as well as Late Show with David Letterman on CBS. Both of Leno's lead-in, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Last Call with Carson Daly, also received increased viewership. For the season, in the 18–49 demographic, The Tonight Show had 4 million viewers, compared with Late Show, which had 3.5 million, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which had only 1.9 million. Nightline, though, still beat Leno in the May 2011 sweeps, with 4.4 million viewers.
Read more about this topic: The Tonight Show With Jay Leno
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)