Late night ratings: Five million Jay Leno fans can't be wrong

For those late night watchers who are interested in the ratings race and how it will be affected by Conan's arrival on the scene, here are a few numbers for you, courtesy of NBC. These are the ratings for the week of May 11, presumably a fairly average week for Leno, since his victory lap should score higher numbers than usual.

Jay's five new shows that week were watched by an average of 5.006 million people (Letterman averaged 3.729 million total). The breakdown among adults 18-49 was 1.845 million for Jay vs. 1.334 million for Dave. In adults 18-34 (generally described by networks as "the coveted 18-34 demographic"), there were 697,000 "Tonight Show" viewers, while 545,000 young folks tuned into "Late Show."

Now, Conan's first 2-3 weeks of "The Tonight Show" will no doubt score huge numbers as people tune in out of curiosity, but in a few months, we can use these numbers as a point of reference to see how he's doing compared to his predecessor.

Meanwhile, at 12:35, it's a closer race, especially in total viewers. Reports NBC: "Jimmy Fallon's 1.041 million adults 18-49 for the week out-delivered Craig Ferguson's 778,000; in total viewers, Jimmy's 1.991 million beat Ferguson's 1.925 million; and in adults 18-34, Jimmy's 435,000 topped Ferguson's 352,000." To be honest, we're not surprised that over a million Ferguson viewers are over 49 (we're guessing there aren't too many under-18s tuning in), since in our experience, Craig seems to be particularly beloved by older women. It would be interesting to see a gender breakdown.