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Rejuvenated ‘Nightline’ Threatens ‘Letterman’

When Ted Koppel left Nightline last November, many fans thought the show was effectively dead, seeing his departure as yet another indication of the decline of the network news. Instead, nine months later, the show’s audience is up 9 percent compared to a year ago.

The new team behind Nightline added lighter features and more celebrity coverage while continuing to maintain the show’s news focus with frequent segments on political and social topics, writes The Wall Street Journal. The result is a show that sometimes isn’t as high-minded as it was in the past, but the change may have been necessary. According to Andrew Tyndall, a TV news analyst for ADT Research, Ted Koppel had, in his last years, “lost his way.” Tyndall calls the changes “more a rejuvenation than a reinvention.”

In late June, Nightline tied new episodes of Late Show with David Letterman in ratings among adults ages 25-54 and adults ages 18-49. The show also beat Letterman episodes in total viewers for three weeks in a row in August.