Posted on 05/12/2025 4:57:09 PM PDT by Red Badger
Here’s a question for ya: is anyone under 40 still watching late-night talk shows? And even more to the point: is anyone under 40 who isn’t a flaming liberal still tuning in to Kimmel, Colbert, or Fallon?
We’d bet the answer is probably “NO.”
Sure, media is changing. Podcasts are exploding. Legacy formats are fading; just look at how X has exploded. But the real reason late-night is dying is multifaceted, and one big reason is Stage 5 Trump Derangement Syndrome. These shows aren’t just outdated; they’ve become downright insufferable.
It’s the same tired punchlines. The same smug sneering. The same moldy jokes about Nazis and orange spray tans. It’s not comedy; it’s therapy for bitter elites who still haven’t processed 2016, let alone 2024.
The media made Trump a ratings cash cow; they milked him dry and then turned on him. Now they’re stuck with the same tired old act, just without the audience.
Late-night talk show ratings are circling the drain.
And Americans have had their fill. At this point, most Americans would rather gouge their eyes out and saw off their ears than sit through another hour of TDS theater. So of course they’re tuning out and flocking to media that doesn’t feel like it’s being written by a brotherhood of bitter dropkicks.
The New York Times:
As the television industry has leaped to streaming, many old genres have come along. Prestige dramas, crime documentaries, reality TV, stand-up specials and even soap operas have successfully crossed over. But not talk shows.
Even on traditional network and cable TV, ratings for late-night talk shows are down, and advertising revenue has plummeted. The number of shows is falling, too, so much so that last year’s Emmy Awards had one nominee fewer because of a lack of submissions. This fall, CBS will forgo programming its 12:30 a.m. slot, the first time in three decades that the network will not have an original talk show in that wee hour.
“Of all the legacy broadcast day parts — morning shows, evening news, late night — late night might be the first one headed for the wood chipper,” said Jim Bell, a former showrunner of “The Tonight Show” on NBC and now a senior executive for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. “It’s expensive to make, tough to monetize and no longer appointment viewing. It’s still got cultural juice, but from a business standpoint, it’s the most vulnerable.”
As recently as 2018, the five broadcast network late-night shows — hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, James Corden and Seth Meyers — drew an estimated $439 million in combined advertising revenue, according to Guideline, an advertising data firm.
By 2022, that figure had fallen to $277 million, Guideline said. Last year, it plunged to $220.6 million, nearly a 50 percent decline from 2018.
Yes, of course the media lapdogs will tell you late-night talk shows are tanking because “viewing habits are changing.” Sure, that’s part of it. But let’s be real, shall we? Video may have killed the radio star, but Stage 5 TDS killed late-night.
Take a look:
While the usual network late-night shows keep spinning their wheels with nonstop TDS, Greg Gutfeld, the conservative, pro-Trump voice, is soaring. Sure, he’s on cable, and by all accounts, he should be trailing behind these legacy hosts, especially with the changing media landscape. After all, he doesn’t have a built-in “late night talk show” audience that’s been groomed over decades.
And to drive the point home, a streaming talk show is actually thriving, not because it’s pushing stale political jokes, but probably because it isn’t. John Mulaney made a conscious decision not to be like Kimmel, Colbert, or Fallon. And guess what? It’s working. People are tuning in. The New York Times piece goes on:
Mr. Mulaney, a renowned stand-up comedian and comedy writer, wound up hosting a talk show almost by accident. During the Netflix Is a Joke comedy festival last May, he was assigned to produce a nightly live show, one that could host the many comedic legends in Los Angeles during the event.
Mr. Mulaney originally envisioned a show that would be a bit “like MTV,” he said, where the host would serve as a sort of V.J., introducing one comic and then the next. He decided he could host it himself, and before long, the concept started to morph into the show’s current iteration.
“Then it became like, well, people can come out and I’ll talk to them, and then they’ll sit there,” Mr. Mulaney said. “Then I’m interviewing people, and we’re doing bits. Like, we couldn’t have backed into it in a more convoluted way.”
Robbie Praw, Netflix’s vice president of stand-up and comedy formats, said in an interview that the company had not initially been “looking or aspiring to do another talk show.” It was more interested “in being in the John Mulaney business” than in talk shows generally, he said, adding, “John is so singular.”
The first season of the show, called “Everybody’s in LA,” ran for all of six episodes but was a huge critical hit. Netflix went ahead and ordered 12 episodes for this year and changed the name to “Everybody’s Live.”
There has been no shortage of big-name guests. Mr. Letterman, Mr. O’Brien, Tina Fey, Bill Hader and Ben Stiller, among other comedic superstars, have appeared this season.
And though the show loosely follows one theme (planning a funeral, borrowing money, getting fired), Mr. Mulaney is not following in the footsteps of Mr. Colbert or John Oliver and dedicating much of the show to the current political news cycle.
“I was kind of like, what type of show do I want to watch?” Mr. Mulaney said. “And it is not — because the ground is well covered by great people — a topical ‘Can you believe sociopolitical story of the day?’”
For a while now, late-night talk shows have been morphing into bitter, Trump-hating abysses, lacking humor, insight, hope, or anything that adds value to anyone’s life. They’re not funny or fresh. They’re sad little circle jerks for overgrown hall monitors. It’s become bad group therapy for liberals who want to fall asleep feeling like their political and social outrage is righteous.
But that doesn’t get ratings. It gets extinction…
They killed it.
and unwillingness of the news to report on the corruption of Democrats led to the end of most news stations.
There is so much to laugh at when one looks at the Democrats. But ain’t nobody gonna touch that goldmine.
I would not waste a second watching these retromingent poltroons. Johnny Carson had class and expertise, something foreign to these clowns.
According to that chart, it appears that 88% of viewers are White females 55+.
retromingent! LOL!........................Sitzpinkler?.........
Old people in general.
Younger people have to get to bed to go to work in the morning. They don’t have the luxury of staying up late to watch these fools...............
Greg Gutfield does and gets amply rewarded for his diligence.............
The fact that Gutfeld is the lone late-night host who isn’t an annoying, insufferable left-wing dirtbag has a lot to do with his consistent lead in the ratings - he has no competition. On the left: Kimmel, Myers, Colbert, Fallon. All left-wing, all complete douchebags, all competing for the same audience of left-wing clapping seals.
I can’t stand the smug, not funny, mean, they think it makes them look hip or cool or something jokes. I never watched any of the talk shows once Carson was gone.
Carson I could get with because I never felt assaulted by politics or separated from the humanity of his guests because I didn’t have the same out look. I never felt lectured at, never felt I had to be ‘told’ what to think.
I know Carson and I did not have the same viewpoints but Carson never made that part of his show. His show was about entertainment and even the least likely, not very famous or not even famous guests brought on were 100 percent more entertaining that these shows today.
And that even goes for Gutfeld who gets too crude and smug for me. I really don’t like it.
So nothing out there unless I watch Carson re-runs and I’m glad to say there are a lot of those.
At least the pay is Good! :)
Gutfeld and his guests may get a little raunchy, but one thing we get from his show is the truth. That’s why he’s at the top of the heap.
For those old enough to remember Johnny Carson, that was appointment viewing.
I cannot even begin the number of lost sleep hours waiting for Johnny to come on at 11:30 each night.
Total class act. No matter who was in the White House, you never could figure out if he was a Republican or a Democrat. He made jokes about all the presidents but his comedy was never mean spirited.
Jay Leno, Carson's replacement, was mostly not bad but he wasn't nearly as great as Carson.
It all went downhill from there.
I haven't watched late night shows in years, including SNL, which I used to love.
They are mostly full of hate these days and not entertaining at all.
You said it!👍
Blame the morons who hired those morons
The ventrilquest guy with the grumpy old man that looked like biteme could have made billions if he wasn’t been afraid of being stoned by the democrats.
That’s because guys like Colbert and Kimmel are cowards and useful idiots.
And Greg deserves every single ounce of his success.
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