Whether or not you’re a fan of Jimmy Fallon, I’m sure a lot of people were at least a little bit curious to know how he’d handle his first night as host of Late Night on NBC. So at first I was a little surprised to learn that ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live beat out Late Night in the ratings last night. And then I saw who Kimmel had as a guest for last night’s episode.
Everyone was talking about The Bachelor today. The phrase “Jason Mesnick is a total –(insert something bad here)-” was being thrown around quite a bit as people discussed what took place during last night’s season finale of The Bachelor. As someone who’s never been able to sit through an episode of The Bachelor despite the numerous lame, guilty-pleasure reality shows I’m willing to subject myself to, I had to pay attention to the water cooler chatter in order to learn that during last night's finale, Mesnick apparently dumped the woman he proposed to and afterward, asked out the runner-up… who said yes. Wow. That’s pretty cold, Mesnick.
So given that Kimmel had Mesnick on his show last night, I can’t say I’m all that surprised that JKL beat out Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, despite last night being Fallon’s first day at the job. I’m sure there were plenty of Bachelor fans out there looking to hear what Mesnick had to say for himself after being the one to break a heart and throw a little humiliation Melissa’s way during the finale.
According to ABC, With an appearance by The Bachelor, Jason Mesnick, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live (2.5) beat both NBC’s highly-promoted debut telecast of Jimmy Fallon in the Metered Market Households by 9% (2.3) and CBS' The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson by 47% (1.7). In addition, in the LPM markets, JKL topped Jimmy Fallon by 27% among Women 18-49 (1.4 vs. 1.1) and by 50% among Women 25-54 (1.8 vs. 1.2).
Of course, it's really just speculation that I'm crediting Mesnick's appearance as the reason behind Kimmel's ratings victory last night. It's entirely possible that people just prefer him over Fallon, however the substantially higher number of women who tuned in to Kimmel's show last night leads me to believe Mesnick's presence had at least a little bit to do with it. Below is Mesnick’s interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live:
