The "sex scandal" that "rocked" "The Late Show" last month has largely been forgiven by Letterman's viewers.  Don't think so?  According to "The Hollywood Reporter", Dave's show has experienced some pretty solid growth in the wake of the whole "sleeping with co-workers" situation that Letterman had to navigate last month. 

The Hollywood Reporter's running a story right now with the headline "Scandal boosts David Letterman's ratings", and doesn't that just say it all?  When Letterman made the on-air admission to sleeping with several of his staff members last month, there was a brief uproar from those who called out for the comedian's head to be placed on top of the nearest pike, but it seems like those looking to get rid of Dave are firmly in the minority.  Here's what they're saying in the article:

Far from hurting the host's popularity, the sex-and-extortion headlines seemingly have had little impact on his late-night show and possibly even helped the series grow its viewership compared with last year.

"It doesn't appear to have hurt him and likely got him more sampling," said Bill Carroll, vp and director of programming at Katz Television Group.

Not only has the "scandal" not hurt Letterman's ratings, it's actually increased them by several percentage points over the same period last year.  THR says:

(Letterman) revealed during the Oct. 1 episode that he has had sexual relationships with female staffers and that he was a victim of an allegedblackmail plot to keep those affairs secret.

Since then, "Late Show's" weekly average rating in the adults 18-49 demographic has been a consistent 1.0 or 1.1 until it went into repeats last week. It has dropped slightly among total viewers, from an average of 4.4 million for a couple of weeks after his premiere to 4.1 million for the week before the repeats.

Whether or not Letterman's a "bad man" is entirely up to readers to decide (hint: he's not; we all make mistakes), but for those that have been claiming that the "scandal" would mark the beginning of the end to Letterman's career in late night, this seems like fairly solid evidence to the contrary.  We're sure that some might argue that the ratings have more to do with Conan O'Brien taking over "The Tonight Show" (The Hollywood Reporter notes that it's down 15% since he took over), but we're not buying it: America loves the chance to judge its celebrities and then determine whether or not they'll keep giving them the cold shoulder.  In this circumstance, it looks like Dave's been given a reprieve.