Letterman's Ratings, Self-Loathing, Up

Hey, how's David Letterman doing after the world learned he'd been the victim of an extortion plot by a CBS producer threatening to reveal the late-night host's sexual involvement with female staffers?

Pretty great! In the ratings, anyway. According to Richard Huff of the New York Daily News, Letterman's Late Show, already riding high since the lackluster debut of NBC's The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, had an estimated viewership of 5.7 million on Monday night, a 19 percent bump from his average.

So much for speculation that female viewers would turn away from the show in droves since the host admitted on the air that he had relationships with underlings. It also calls into question the results of a newly released Rasmussen Reports poll that found 29 percent of Americans said they'd be less likely to watch Late Night with David Letterman now. (In truth, are the sorts of people answering telephone surveys likely to watch Letterman anyway?)

There is, however, a danger in Letterman turning off viewers with his repeated jokes at his own expense. He did the right thing coming forward and revealing the plot and the circumstances that prompted it. (CBS, however, did wrong by removing clips of the apology from YouTube.) He was also correct in apologizing to his wife and staff on air on Monday, and, heck, it was even OK that he cracked a few jokes at his own expense, like this tepid one recounted by the New York Observer's Felix Gillette: “It’s fall here in New York City. I spent the whole weekend raking my hate mail.”

He's zinged himself enough, and if the show turns into his own comedic version of the Stations of the Cross, he's going to turn off more viewers than he would have with his simple honesty last week.

There's an old, semi-legendary story about Letterman that comes to mind as he flagellates himself on air. According to Bill Carter's book, The Late Shift (recounted in a story from the Associated Press on Friday), sometime in the 1980s the host reportedly wrote a note to guest Teri Garr during a commercial break that read "I hate myself." (In the HBO adaptation of the book, the recipient of Letterman's self-loathing mash note is Sandra Bernhard, which is telling since both women were memorable objects of on-air crushes by Letterman during his NBC years.) Letterman's relationship with his audience then—as now—could be summed up by the May 1992 Esquire cover created by artist Barbara Kruger to explain the appeal of frequent Letterman guest Howard Stern: "I Hate Myself. And You Love Me For It."

Viewers know Letterman is relentlessly self-effacing—verging, at times, on self-loathing. He doesn't need to remind them every single night that he hates himself right now. They know this, and yet, amazingly, they're willing to watch him anyway. Many of them have always been willing to do so.

Letterman should know this better than anyone. And now he should know it's time to move on.