(Updated, 9:30 a.m.)

PROVIDENCE – The late-night newscast on WPRI-TV (CBS 12) beat WJAR-TV (NBC 10) in the ratings for the first time in years last week as Jay Leno’s new talk show pulled down the local NBC affiliate’s viewership.

Fewer than 2,000 homes separated the two stations’ 11 p.m. broadcasts from Oct. 19 to 23, according to Nielsen.

WPRI averaged a 6.8 rating at 11 p.m., meaning 42,364 households in the Providence-New Bedford television market tuned in.

WJAR averaged a 6.5 rating at 11 p.m., with about 40,495 households watching. WLNE (ABC 6) remained far behind with 11,837 households watching at 11 p.m., for a 1.9 rating.

Like their colleagues at NBC affiliates across the country, executives at WJAR have been nervously watching the network’s experiment with programming a talk show at 10 p.m. every night.

NBC has noted that Leno’s show can be profitable with lower ratings because it is far cheaper to produce than a scripted program. But that does not help local affiliates, who depend on the final hour of network prime time to give a strong lead-in to their newscasts, which are a key source of revenue for the stations.

Local ratings for “The Jay Leno Show” are significantly lower than those of the shows that ran in its time slot last year, according to Nielsen.

Leno’s program averaged a 6.2 rating at 10 p.m. last week, meaning 38,626 households in the region tuned in. That was down 17 percent from a year earlier, Nielsen said.

WPRI, by contrast, saw its ratings at 10 p.m. for CBS shows like “CSI: Miami” and “The Mentalist” jump 38 percent to average 54,824 households, for an 8.8 rating.

On the other hand, WLNE saw its 10 p.m. ratings fall even farther than WJAR’s last week, losing 34 percent to average 19,936 households, or a 3.2 rating, for ABC shows such as “Brothers & Sisters” and “Eastwick.”

All told, about one-third of local households watched one of the three local late-night news broadcasts last week.

Nielsen said WPRI averaged a 13.9 share at 11 p.m. last week, meaning nearly 14 percent of local televisions that were turned on at the time were watching the station. WJAR had 13.2 percent of all households watching, while WLNE had 3.9 percent.

WJAR continued to hold a lead in the ratings for its morning and evening newscasts.

Jay Howell, WPRI’s president and general manager, took the opportunity to crow. “I’m very proud of the Eyewitness News team and their historic achievement,” he said in a statement.

WPRI is owned by LIN TV Corp., a Providence-based company that owns more than two dozen stations in the United States. WJAR is owned by Richmond, Va.-based Media General Inc., while WLNE is owned by Global Broadcasting LLC, a Delaware corporation with offices in Providence and San Francisco.

The news of WPRI’s ratings victory came as its parent company, LIN TV, on Thursday reported a third-quarter net loss of $875,000, or 2 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $10.22 million, or 20 cents a share. Revenue fell 17.6 percent to $81.37 million, partly due to lower TV advertising spending in a non-election year.