'Tonight' Starts Well, On YouTube and on TV

The traditional television ratings have been impressive for the first two weeks of the new 'Tonight' show hosted by Jimmy Fallon, but they do not include what amounts to a giant secondary audience that has gathered online to watch carefully crafted and curated highlights of the show on YouTube and other sites.

In the first week of the show, clips of Fallon with his guests have amassed more than 37 million YouTube views. (They also are uploaded daily to NBC.com and Hulu.) The top clips include one on the evolution of hip-hop dancing with Fallon and Will Smith, the latest in Fallon's series of 'History of Rap' duets with Justin Timberlake, and a special teen-girl dance party sketch featuring Michelle Obama with Fallon and Will Ferrell.

Fallon and his staff, beginning in their years on NBC's 'Late Night' program, have been intensely aware of the marketing opportunity attached to exposure online, as have other stars in late-night television. But none of the views being racked up on YouTube have generated additional revenue for the show; they appear there without commercials.

'Right now our strategy for YouTube is really about marketing and building audiences across all platforms,' said Rob Hayes, the executive vice president of digital media for NBC Entertainment.

Hayes said it was NBC's decision not to seek to make money from YouTube exposure — yet.

'If we want to monetize the clips in the future, it will be our choice,' he said.

The same clips on NBC.com and Hulu do contain commercials, but the number of views (which has not been officially tallied) is far fewer than what YouTube accumulates. Hayes said it was essential for the clips to be available on YouTube.

'If we weren't on YouTube, those clips would be pirated and put up by other people,' Hayes said.

It would be hard to argue that the views on YouTube had damaged Fallon's ratings so far. The show continues to exceed expectations. Tuesday night's show averaged more than 5.6 million viewers, still well above the level for late-night shows. But, notably, it scored a 1.9 rating in the audience NBC sells to most advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49. That was a better rating than any program on network or cable scored in the 10 p.m. hour.