Earlier this week, Showtime (or rather Paramount + with Showtime’s Chris McCarthy) announced its upsetting decision to not renew the rowdy newcomer in late night, Ziwe, for another season. Unfortunately, this news leaves Amber Ruffin as the sole late night host who isn’t an old white guy (unless you want to count the new season of The Eric Andre Show as part of traditional late night). The Jimmys (Kimmel and Fallon), Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Andy Cohen, James Corden for a few more episodes, and the right-wing-provocateur-non-comedian Greg Gutfeld are all that’s left for late night at the current moment.
This doesn’t exactly paint a bright, beaming future for a long standing genre of TV that has entire Emmy categories dedicated to it. Kudos, by the way, to The Hollywood Reporter for having their headline for this new item read “Ziwe Canceled as Showtimes Orders Mandy Patinkin Comedy Seasoned“ to highlight a young black woman being kicked off a network and another old white man gets another show).
It would almost seem that the Chris McCarthys and Ted Sarandoses of the world couldn’t care less about late night given its current state. All the attempts, over the last several years, to redefine/reimagine/disrupt the original Tonight Show format laid out by its originator Steve Allen in the 1950s (because it doesn’t seem so invigorating or exciting on this side of the 21st century) are gone and, once more, we’re back to a bunch of old white guys talking to celebrities trying to convince people watch whatever they were just starring in. One by one, the late night new blood and paradigm shifters that included Desus & Mero, Lilly Singh, Samantha Bee, Hasan Minhaj, Trevor Noah, and now, Ziwe, have all closed up shop, left, stepped down, or had their show canceled. In very minuscule contrast, the only new developments in late night are that The Late Late Show might be replaced by a retooled version of @midnight, Chelsea Handler could return to late night, and The Daily Show might have an entire panel of hosts.
Brands and channels are being reshuffled due to bigger and bigger corporate mergers and streaming services increasingly becoming the dominating way to watch content. This has led to almost unprecedented level of cuts and write-offs of content in a desperate search of surefire franchises/cinematic universes/etc. Late night talk shows are certainly not immune from this and seem to be rather low in priority compared to, well, everything else that is, ironically, featured by guests on late night.
It’s at this point that one might wonder what hath the future wrought for late night talk shows. Unfortunately, there is a more pressing existential question at hand, “What’s the point of late night talk shows, especially if people aren’t largely even watching them at midnight?” A large segment of Colbert and Kimmel’s audiences don’t even watch it live at the namesake time, but rather during the day, in clip form, on YouTube. Where would James Corden be if not for the viral popularity of Carpool Karaoke? Also, the advent of podcasts make for deeper, more satisfying, more easily digestible interviews (since you can listen while doing a myriad of other things) than the heavily edited ones that air past 11PM. Additionally, the idea that an individual would watch someone like Chlöe Bailey on Fallon tonight and THEN being convinced to watch the new Little Mermaid truly seems farfetched in 2023.
Sure, but answer your question.
There is an unspoken need for the 24 hours news cycle to have some sort of sugar on it. News media continues to be hell bent on scaring us all half to death so they can win a never-ending ratings race and, as that’s the case, it’s necessary to have comedy to process that. Late night, as a genre, often fills that need in both finding the humor in the dark and simultaneously distracting us from the inherent anxiety of existing. Talking to celebrity guests and having bits sprinkled in might not be the way to accomplish that in the coming years.
It seems as though eons ago that Conan O’Brien stepped down from his tenure in late night and traded it for a podcast empire, which he seems to be having a blast with. It actually feels like the wild, anything-could-happen early days of Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The majority of the fun of Eric Andre putting the talk show format through a blender then spitting it out again is not really having any idea what’s going to happen as well. If there’s to be any future to late night talk shows, it might be prudent for the “catchy” new portmanteaus of Warner Discovery or Paramount + with Showtime to do some version of Insomniac with Dave Attell.
Know that we think about it, such a show might actually have to happen if there’s another writers’ strike.