People from all over the world on most weekdays eagerly line up across New York City — ready to do something they’d likely never do at home.
Dozens of tourists, fun-seekers and fans snake across the floor in the middle of the afternoon in the luxurious lobby at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza, all anxious to see Seth Meyers do a live-to-tape run-through of his “Late Night,” a program that has been on in one form or another on the network since David Letterman launched it in 1982. Attending one of the shows means agreeing to take part in an hours-long process that requires everything from security checks to a light verbal grilling by a warm-up comic who aims to get attendees ready to laugh. Many blocks away, a similar crowd queues up under a marquee on the west side of Manhattan, ready to take part in a taping of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” a TV institution that debuted in 1996 and, at present, has no regular host.
Visitors to these programs come from as far away as Italy or Holland to see how they get made. Some live closer and just see the shows as a fun place to take a date or spend a few hours off from work. But there’s no getting around their task: Fans must sit through a whole hour, from opening monologue to last-minute “good night.” Some people may watch Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert at home in the same way, but their number is diminishing.
Those late night hosts like to make people laugh. But the wee hours often serve as home to something else: horror stories. Maddie Luke, a 26-year-old who works at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, is very interested in hosts like Meyers, Fallon and Colbert. Like a growing number of TV consumers, however, she doesn’t have a cable or satellite-TV subscription. Instead, she says, “I just follow the socials, and I’ll find the interview if I’m interested in the guest.” She’s not sure she’s missing out on anything. “When I’m home, I will watch an hour-long drama or I’ll watch a couple of comedy episodes,” but for interviews with celebrities, “I kind of like where I don’t have to watch one guest after another. I don’t mind watching a guest that I’m interested in, but sometimes, I’m not interested in what’s next.” Megha Kakaraparti , a 26-year-old product manager from Leesburg, Va., prefers to use late-night hours to watch her favorite crime procedurals. When she does take notice of a late-night show, she says, “it’s just clips on TikTok or YouTube, or just something I see on Instagram that’s trending.”
It’s no secret among TV executives that the younger people who once stayed up past midnight to watch David Letterman drop objects off a five-story building are not tuning to this generation’s cadre of late-night hosts in the same way. Changing habits like those described above make decades-old late night shows such as “Tonight, “Late Show” or “Late Night” less easy to monetize — and, if executives aren’t careful, less alluring to keep putting on the air one evening after another.
In 2018, seven late night programs — NBC’s “Tonight” and “Late Night,” CBS’ “Late Show” and “Late Late Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” — drew more than $698 million in advertising in 2018, according to Vivvix, a tracker of ad spending. By 2022, that total came to $412.7 million — a drop of approximately 41% over five years. Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert and the others have all in recent years had to grapple not only with viewers moving to streaming, but with a coronavirus pandemic that forced their shows to embrace performances without a band and live audiences and absences due to infection.
All of this gives Madison Avenue a good reason to try something else. Late-night shows have made themselves more alluring to advertisers by offering product placements, even segments during which the host offers a shout out to a sponsor. But “viewers are seeking out and finding their cut down ‘highlights,’ or moments, rather than making the live episode appointment viewing,” says Dave Sederbaum, executive vice president and head of video investment at Dentsu Media US, a large ad buyer that works for General Motors and Heineken, among others. “My job is to balance our investments in full episodic content as well as highlights in short-form video.”
And so, everyone seems to have night jitters. Over the course of the past few years, NBC has gotten out of the practice of programming a show for 1:30 a.m. after doing so since 1988, and Comedy Central’s portfolio of wee-hours programming has been cut from three to one — and that one, “Daily Show,” has yet to replace Trevor Noah, who abruptly told a studio audience while taping an episode in September that he planned to leave to escape the late-night grind after seven seasons. After James Corden ends his run on CBS’ “The Late Late Show” in the next few days, CBS will cancel the program, even though it has been a fixture on its schedule since Tom Snyder launched it in 1995. In its place, the network is expected to air a revival of the Comedy Central game show “@midnight,” which will cost significantly less than a bells-and-whistles Corden production that includes signature bits like “Carpool Karaoke.”
Others have also been wary. When Conan O’Brien arrived at TBS in 2010, it was seen as a bid to compete more directly with the cable network’s broadcast rivals. But Warner Bros. Discovery, TBS new corporate parent, has made no move to find a replacement since O’Brien departed in 2021, and also cancelled a weekly program from Samantha Bee that emulated late-night antics. Efforts by streamers to harness some of the format’s power have not been successful. Netflix stopped production on a nightly program led by Chelsea Handler, while Hulu canceled a weekly show from Sarah Silverman. Apple currently runs a program featuring the legendary Jon Stewart, but any buzz around it has been minimal — the result, perhaps, of trying to run a series of this sort without the ability to promote it to a big audience turning in regularly to a primetime or daytime schedule. NBCU has tested a show led by Amber Ruffin for Peacock, but is producing fewer episodes as she works on a comedy pilot.
Late-night TV is one of the industry’s signature products. Some veterans of the late-night wars aren’t optimistic the programs can continue in the same fashion. “You’re dealing with some heavy legacy costs and infrastructure: staff, studio crew, hosts. In a time of diminishing audiences, it’s tough to make that math add up,” says Jim Bell, a former showrunner at NBC’s “Tonight” and executive producer of “Today” who is now head of strategy for NewsBreak, a local news and information platform. “You can hope that things like social media — Instagram, YouTube — might be complimentary, but it just now feels like it’s cannibalizing.”
No one is sending Stephen Colbert to the sidelines — not tonight, and probably not next year. Fallon, Kimmel and their cohorts continue to lure a decent audience each evening, and their monologues, sketches, pranks and interviews turn up all over the digi-sphere within minutes of being broadcast, sometimes even in advance. Many of the hosts create bespoke content for Twitter and YouTube. Seth Meyers’ team releases his signature analysis segment, “A Closer Look,” in the early evening on social media well before his program airs. He also does a weekly “Corrections” segment for YouTube that tackles viewers’ complaints and comments — no matter how mundane or odd. It’s very heavy on inside jokes. Many hosts are creating other content as well, including a pickleball tournament backed by Colbert or NBC shows such as “That’s My Jam” or “Password” that are produced by Fallon.
The networks don’t want to give up. The hosts play a big role in influencing the national conversation. Johnny Carson essentially tucked the nation into bed when he led “Tonight” and it was David Letterman who helped America move on from the tragedy of 9/11 with, of all things, a late-night monologue. “It’s an important part of the dialogue and culture,” says Jen Flanz, executive producer of “Daily,” which observers note is likely reducing expenses by relying on guests to lead the program. Not every country allows TV personalities to poke fun at the government or influentials, she adds. “I think it’s important to appreciate the platform that late-night hosts have.”
The jobs still carry appeal. Kal Penn, who recently completed a week-long stint as a “Daily Show” guest host, would be eager to take the job full time. “The first time I remember watching, I was 18 or 19,” he says. ”So this was a real dream come true to host for a week.”
And while it’s true no single host is bringing in the numbers Carson did when he had only an occasional rival to worry about, there is still admiration for what a late-night host does, putting up hundreds of hours of TV every year under great time pressure. “These are difficult jobs. It takes a special talent to be funny and topical while tackling tough subjects and writing great jokes about current events on a nightly basis. The hosts need to be the managing editors of their shows and have a distinct point of view. It’s rarefied air to find people who are the best of the best at it,” says Jim Dixon, the veteran WME agent who represents Colbert, Kimmel and Jon Stewart. “I don’t think the networks would be in the late-night business if it wasn’t profitable.”
How profitable remains a key question. As money gets tighter, executives begin to worry about costs. The move from watching TV programs on a specific night and at a specific time to binge-viewing a favorite on a streaming hub at moments of one’s own choosing has destabilized the TV economy, and Wall Street has put pressure on media giants to show profits as well as digital growth. Media CEOs now have “this intense focus on cost management and cash flow generation. There’s just such an appetite today to look at old standbys, whether it’s programming or even assessing entire dayparts and saying, ‘Does this meet our needs over the near term?’,” says John Harrison, who leads the Americas media and entertainment practice at EY. “Some of the late-evening and late-night dayparts could get caught up in that.”
TV executives are increasingly pushed to consider whether a live band is truly critical to a new show’s midnight success, or forced to count how many “field pieces,” or sketches produced outside the studio, a show can really do. Producers can tell “when things are flush and when they are not,” says one executive familiar with late-night programs, and when that’s the case, writers and hosts understand “we should do the ones we love,” and not every idea that pops up in a meeting.
When Johnny Carson held sway behind the desk at NBC’s “Tonight,” it was fun to try and pick at the unknown. Carson routinely played a character named Carnac the Magnificent, who would hold an envelope up to his forehead and guess the answer to a question that was tucked inside. If only someone could see into the future now! “It’s definitely time for some Carnac,” says Bell, the former producer.
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Carson never had to worry about the problems that plague late night today. And besides, some of the format’s current challenges might best be pinned on Letterman.
It’s not Letterman’s fault viewers are scrambling to stream when they stay up late. Yet when the host came out to the stage of “The Late Show” at New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater on an early April day in 2014 and surprised the live audience by announcing his intentions to retire, he set in motion a series of maneuvers that have weakened late night, rather than bolstering it.
Letterman exited the format in 2015, after 6,080 episodes of CBS’ “The Late Show” and NBC’s “Late Night.” In doing so, he opened what many rivals perceived as an opportunity. Letterman’s retirement — as well as an announcement that Jon Stewart would step down from “The Daily Show” in 2015 after a 16-year tenure — spurred others to see if they couldn’t get in on the late-night game. The idea, however, wasn’t to capture everyone, as had been the goal for decades, but just a sliver of the overall crowd.
National Geographic Channel lined up astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson for a weekly late-night series aimed at viewers with an inner geek. CMT in 2015 hired comedian Josh Wolf to try his hand at a Wednesday-to-Saturday program that would examine country-music notables. MTV tested “Middle of the Night Show,” a series that forced a celebrity to host a late-night program on the spot from his or her home.
When Carson held sway, late-night rivals were few and far between. Arsenio Hall made a mark in syndication, but Pat Sajak did nothing for CBS. Joan Rivers famously flopped on Fox. After Letterman moved to CBS from NBC, Fox tried again with Chevy Chase. The attempt didn’t last long. But with Letterman and Jay Leno splitting the field, ABC broke new ground, first by launching Bill Maher in “Politically Incorrect” in 1997 (grabbing the show from Comedy Central) and then by placing Jimmy Kimmel after “Nightline” in 2003. And HBO nibbled on the edges by developing Maher (after an exit from ABC) in “Real Time,” and, later, by launching John Oliver in a Sunday format, “Last Week Tonight” that, if the weekday crew offers the comedic version of the nightly news, stands as a sort of laughter–inducing “60 Minutes.” Suddenly, everyone wanted to make a late-night play. TBS soon launched “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” once a week at 10 p.m. in a program that appealed mainly to viewers with liberal political leanings. BET and Vice tried shows led, respectively, by Robin Thede and Desus & Mero. The Vice duo would jump to Showtime.
As the election of President Donald Trump polarized the nation, some of late-night’s voices chose to lean into politics. The fragmentation of viewing and the trickier conversational terrain have hurt the programs, says Harrison. “There has been so much political news over the last six to eight years, and that has filtered into late night. When that becomes a large part of your program, in this environment, you are — by math — probably not appealing to half your potential audience,” he cautions. Meanwhile, as more viewers bypass linear TV, he says. “It’s difficult to discover these shows or promote them.”
Enter Fox News Channel. In 2021, the Fox Corp.-backed cable outlet added “Gutfeld!” to its lineup at 11 p.m. The program features commentator Greg Gutfeld and a panel of contributors who talk politics and culture. Fox has positioned the program as a competitor to Colbert, Fallon, Kimmel and “The Daily Show.” “We are not having celebrities to promote some movie,” says Tom O’Connor, the program’s executive producer. “We are just having interesting people that we think are funny.” In the first quarter of 2023, “Gutfeld!” captured more viewers on average than either NBC’s “Tonight” or ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel.”
Little wonder that the TV companies with longstanding ties to late-night have begun to retrench.
People behind the scenes estimate the CBS reboot of “@midnight” will cost millions of dollars less per year to produce. There may not be as big an investment in a talent like Corden’s, these people say. George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS, won’t divulge additional details, but notes, “All the broadcast networks in that space have to be really thoughtful about what we spend, how we spend and how we invest. You can’t be locked into some of the legacy elements of the format.”
There are other ways to keep late-night going, he argues. “I do think the late-night daypart is really critical to the broadcast platform. I think you have iconic franchises in ‘The Late Show,’ ‘Tonight Show,’ Kimmel. I think there is genuine interest in maintaining that space. That being said, one of the opportunities we see with the 12:30 spot is a chance to widen the aperture when it comes to format, when it comes to talent, making sure we have diversity both behind and in front of the camera.”
Comedy Central may still rebuild “The Daily Show” around a central personality starting in the fall, but the show has been test-driving guest hosts since January. “We were incredibly impressed and,
frankly, thrilled with the guest hosts,” says Chris McCarthy, president and CEO, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios & Paramount Media Networks. “Each one has brought something unique over many of these weeks. We’ve had some weeks with higher viewing than we did at this time last year, so there’s always room for growth.” McCarthy adds that the guest hosts will continue “until around the end of Spring, and then, we will finalize our choice.” Even so, use of guest hosts may remain an option. “I think there are a lot of people who want the job,” says Flanz. “I would like to see a lot of people do it before we make any kind of decision.”
Yet the days of offering multiple late-night programs may be over at the network — at least for now. “What we were finding in in linear, you need things that have the help of big marquee IP, something that has big, broad awareness. We tried really hard to launch new companions. We were finding that people came to linear for their habits. In a lot of cases, that is insurmountable, launching a show when you are up against not having a built-in audience, and so, it’s challenging,” says McCarthy. “That’s not to say we might not try down the road to drive a Sunday show or a weekend show, but right now we are laser focused on building out the new version of ‘Daily’ with an iconic new face.” Any new program, he adds, would likely be launched “under the ‘Daily Show’ franchise.”
The company that runs what is arguably the biggest portfolio of late-night shows in the industry has been working aggressively to monetize them — and could make radical shifts soon, depending on circumstances. NBCUniversal expects to evaluate how it should program 10 p.m. after the 2023-2024 season, says Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCU’s TV and streaming operations, and depending on its findings, the way it presents late-night shows could change. If NBC were to stop putting original scripted hours in its weekday 10 p.m. slot, he says, “We would obviously think about how that affects late night and maybe run late night a little earlier, if that became the case. We have made no determination. We will evaluate it a year from now. As of right now, we are firmly set with three hours of prime time.”
This wouldn’t be the first time NBCU has tested such a strategy. In 2009, it ran a talk-and-comedy show led by Jay Leno at 10 p.m. each weekday, until complaints from affiliates that low ratings were hurting late local news forced its cancellation just months later. When Peacock launched in 2020, NBC proposed airing both the Fallon and Meyers programs in early evening — well before “Tonight” and “Late Night” turn up on local stations. NBC heard from its affiliates on the matter, and “ultimately felt it wasn’t the right decision,” says Lazarus.” It wouldn’t bring enough to Peacock to justify what it might do the linear broadcast.”
NBCU has already made one big night shift. In a different era, says Lazarus, running a show at 1:30 a.m. made sense — and got ratings. After airing programs in the hour led by Bob Costas, Greg Kinnear, Cynthia Garrett, Carson Daly, and, most recently, Lilly Singh, “we thought in partnership with our affiliates, we could drive more value by doing other things, and having them program that time slot,” he says. “There’s no magic to it. It’s really late at night and there’s a lower audience level.”
Even the smallest investor in late-night TV could face challenges in years to come. At ABC, Jimmy Kimmel recently signed another three-year deal, but executives at rival media companies wonder whether the host, who is currently the longest-serving on air and will take off the summer as he has for the past two years, might choose to step down. With Kimmel involved in the Oscars and producing other specials, “you can’t put a price on what Jimmy means to Walt Disney Company as well as late night,” says Rob Mills, executive vice president of unscripted and alternative entertainment at Walt Disney Television, who adds: “I don’t think he’s going to stay for another 40 years, but I certainly am praying he’s going to stay beyond these three.” The show employs both the host and his spouse, Molly McNearney, who is an executive producer, and it has also given Kimmel more presence as he delves more into creating other programs and content under his production venture, Kimmelot.
What would Disney do if Kimmel chose to exit? The host might have some say in who succeeds him, says Mills. “A lot of it is just timing. Is there some new, amazing talent?” he asks. “If not, absolutely, I think we would look at some other types of formats or things we should do.” Could “Nightline” return to the post-late-news slot it held for years before Disney gave that space to Kimmel? “I’m sure that news would absolutely be in the conversation,” says Mills.
TV networks may not want to have these talks. But they already seem like they’re rehearsing for them.
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One late-night show is not like the others.
While the networks explore new models and cut costs, NBC re-engineered “Saturday Night Live” several years ago. In 2017, NBC took the program, which has long aired at 11:30 p.m. on the east coast, then across the rest of the country in delayed fashion, and ran it live all at once. Doing so “was the absolute right thing to do, given how technology allows people to consume media,” says Lazarus. “I don’t think we should treat people on the west coast as second class citizens.” As part of the process, NBC cut back the number of commercials in the ad breaks that accompanied “SNL,” leaving viewers with less time to search other channels or run out for a snack, and prodding Madison Avenue to pay higher prices to appear in the show.
The maneuver has helped stoke continuing interest in the program, which executive producer Lorne Michaels has pushed to morph with the times. “SNL” is a cultural behemoth. Even Axios, the newsletter publisher focused on politics and technology, has on occasion posted a re-cap of the program, joining dozens of other media outlets who summarize “SNL” highlights each week.
“SNL” could face a challenge of a different sort, however. Michaels, who founded the show and guided it through nearly all its tenure on air, is nearing 80. That, combined with some of his own recent remarks, have fueled speculation that the show could, at some not-too-distant point, have other people guiding it from behind the scenes.
“I think I’m committed to doing this show until its 50th anniversary, which is in three years,” Michaels told CBS News in 2021. “I’d like to see that through, and I have a feeling that’d be a really good time to leave. But here’s the point: I won’t want the show ever to be bad. I care too deeply about it. It’s been my life’s work. So, I’m gonna do everything I can to see it carry on and carry on well.” Months later, the producer appeared to change his plans. “I have no plans to retire,” he told The New York Times in 2022.
One theory has it that Michaels could hand the reins to someone like Seth Meyers, Colin Jost or Tina Fey. All three have served as head writers of “SNL.” Jost is still with the show, while Fey and Meyers have gone one to their own successes in front of and behind the camera. Would Michaels consider stepping back by a few degrees, maintaining oversight of the program while letting someone else take on more routine management tasks? Michaels does, after all, also have oversight of “Tonight” and “Late Night” through his Broadway Video production company, and he is also involved with projects tied to Pete Davidson, Maria Taylor and Rachel Maddow, among others. Or will he just keep on keeping on?
NBC declined to make the producer available for comment.
A Michaels departure could create a major change in the way “SNL” is run. “The instructive thing about Lorne’s stewardship of SNL is he is in charge of the whole thing — the business side and the creative side. He is truly the executive producer of the show. He has great lieutenants, but if you’re going to bring in a creative person like Colin, Tina, Seth or whoever, you would probably want to place them in charge of the creative elements, and find others who would handle the business side,” says James Andrew Miller, co-author of the 2002 “SNL” oral history, “Live From New York.” “I don’t think any one person can do all of the things that Lorne does.”
NBC expects to continue working with him. “This is not a man who is slowing down at any great rate,” says Lazarus. If there is a succession decision to be made, says Lazarus, “Lorne is going to have major input on all of that. It’s Lorne’s show. It’s Lorne’s legacy. Let me put it this way: Everybody who has sat in my chair, he has been here to say hello and goodbye to. He’s still here. He’s calling the shots.”
Michaels’ departure would be a once-in-a-lifetime TV event, except for one thing: It has happened before.
The producer left “Saturday Night Live” after its fifth season, hoping to try his hand at other projects and to get away from the whirl of getting such an unusual program on the air each week. One of the potential successors considered at the time was Al Franken, a writer and occasional on-screen contributor who would go on to become a U.S. Senator from Minnesota. The idea was scrapped by then-NBC chief Fred Silverman, who didn’t like the fact that Franken made fun of him and NBC’s ratings in a “Weekend Update” sketch.
only one thing about Michaels’ tenure at “SNL” is certain, says Franken: “It’s up to Lorne.”
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As Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers and others continue their late-night antics, TV executives acknowledge the terrain once trod by Carson, Letterman and Jay Leno has become more difficult to navigate. “Five years from now, it will probably be the same,” NBCU’s Lazarus says of current late-night formats. “Ten years from now, all bets are off. There are a lot of pieces to that — what are our relationships with distributors? Is something the norm as opposed to the new entry? What is the relationship between broadcast and affiliate partners?”
Even so, some are trying to figure out what viewers will watch late in the evening. “I think it can be a moment of opportunity for outlets with open real estate or who haven’t been in the space in some time or at all,” says Allan Hadelman, who heads the New York office of talent agency UTA. “I’m curious as to whether there is some type of programming that exists in this format that is compatible with new audiences and distribution, for people who may no longer turn on a tv and flip through the channels but still may be interested in something consistent, reliable, and entertaining at the end of the day.”
Netflix recently did a live broadcast of a Chris Rock stand-up concert, complete with a pre-show and post-show. And Sony Pictures Television hopes to launch a new half-hour syndicated late-night talk show in the fall led by Craig Ferguson. The program aims to focus on surprising and hilarious TV moments and would launch, presumably, as CBS and Comedy Central are trying to get viewers excited about the new post-Corden game show and a new ‘Daily Show’ set-up. There may also be new opportunities for the regulars, says one person familiar with some of the late-night programs — Fallon, for instance, would likely greet a bigger crowd at 10 p.m. than he does at 11:30 after the local news.
The question, of course, is whether the entries of the future will get people lining up around New York as the current crowd does. For now, late-night hosts are holding sway. The job is unique, influential and lucrative, and these masters of midnight can still laugh all the way to the bank. Unfortunately, the networks that broadcast them cannot.
