Did CNBC overstate audience for Jay Leno?

Brendan James of The International Business Times reports that the audience number CNBC released for the premiere of “Jay Leno’s Garage” was higher than the Nielsen measurement.

James writes, “The network touted the payoff in a release Friday, declaring that the show’s premiere night delivered “over 1.1 million total viewers” — its best performing original series telecast ever.

“But the release itself, along with the raw Nielsen numbers, shows that Leno’s show pulled in less than 1 million. The show peaked at 916,000 in the 10-11 p.m. slot, so the network appears to have pulled in the numbers from a repeat later on in the evening in order to come up with the 1.1 million figure.

“Notably, the network leaned hard on the Nielsen numbers despite making a very public exit from the ratings service in January. ‘Nielsen does not measure affluent homes or out-of-home viewing that takes place in the offices of chief executives, on trading floors, in five-star hotels, country clubs, fitness centers and fine restaurants, so Nielsen does not measure CNBC,’ a spokesperson told International Business Times in August.

“That prevented the network from doing a victory lap this summer when it scored its biggest ratings in a while during a stock market scare.”

Read more here.