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Say goodbye to funny, edgy Colbert, and hello to neutered, bland Colbert.
Well, if history serves as any indication.
Of course nothing lasts forever, but my main complaint is that he is going somewhere where he basically has to be unfunny, irrelevant, and boring as part of the job description.
Danielle, that's what hip people have decided vis-a-vis Bell, but the Powers that Be are a different animal. Maybe they'll make an exception this time.
Ha! You'll see celebrities, of course, but you're going to get Savage and Alexie on CBS now, for starters.
On the other hand, maybe he is getting bored with the limited premise of the show. He's more talented that just being a great parody of Fox News.
Colbert is 50. He's NOT middle aged (unless you all plan to start living to a hundred). He's on the edge of being old (I'm older, but whatever).
Letterman wasn't middle aged when he started Late Night. Letterman was 35 when he first started Late Night.
That was young in TV terms in the late 1970's early eighties. WAY young back then. It was how he could spend decades building a dynasty.
For perspective: Jimmy Fallon is 40. Tina Fey is 43.
CBS is kissing good by the young demographic. And people my age don't watch late night talk shows. CBS is kissing good by the future, essentially. This means there will be a new host every three or four years until it all fails.
I love Colbert. But he is a stupid choice. They needed somebody in their early to mid thirties.
I think Mindy Kaling was a good choice, personally.
I'm sad to lose The Colbert Report, and Colbert, to the dull blade of Late Night, UNLESS he can bring that sharp liberal wit along with him, where he can reach audiences not yet exposed.
The problem is the late night spots are no longer really talk shows that require interviewers. They are comedy variety shows with viral skits and a couple of guests promoting crappy movies to attract the olds.
Late night shows have to have at least one hight page view viral video skit for the internet every night. Those are not interviews with Salmon Rushdie. In the internet age virals are the only way they can tell the true breadth of the audience for advertising dollars. People over forty are not the group to be appealing to for that.
The growth demographic no longer have traditional viewing habits and mostly don't care about interviews. They want a viral to send around social media.
Colbert can do that with politics because he has a built in audience of liberals (and that is where he is still rooted). But He doesn't have the same cache with young people to that with straight comedy. It takes time to build that and after the current batch of liberals hit middle age he will be too old to do it for twenty somethings.
But ... Racism & Sexism won
You are an exceptional late night talk show analyst. It's kinds like you who are greatly needed in these tough economic times for the underclasses. Keep up the great work.
No way. I'm old enough to remember when David Letterman was funny and edgy.
Colbert can't do his satirical Bill O'Reilly shtick forever. Personally I'm looking forward to this new phase.
My bet is that he'll do something we've not seen before, and it will be subversive and fantastic.
I, too, would like to have seen a comedy lady in that timeslot. Maybe that's what will come of Colbert's current show. Someone give Maya Rudolph a call!!
David Letterman
Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Kimmel
Seth Meyers
Craig Ferguson
Carson Daly
Conan O'Brien
Jon Stewart
Stephen Colbert
Representing 67% of America, kind of:
Chelsea Handler
Arsenio Hall
Absolutely unbelievable. Let's just mail crowns to every white man in America to prove we all understand how out society works.
@tkc I'm twenty five and I'm going to start watching the Late Show as soon as Colbert takes over, so :P
Jon Stewart better stay in that mother fucking chair or I will lose my shit.
I'm all for it Raku. When you start mailing those crowns to the white men, give me a ring. The adhesive high I get from licking stamps is awesome, and I've been wanting to take it to the next level.
I have no opinion about Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart or any other specific member of the millions of white guys in charge. I'm talking about systemic, social, cultural problems. Nobody would stand for it for one second if any other minority was in charge of so much like white men are.
As was said by another before me, Stewart better keep his chair or I will seriously lose my shit every night at 10pm central.
But yeah Norton does around 4 million viewers in the UK. However, it's a deceptive comparison because Norton's show is weekly. Not nightly. Way different.
Late night viewership in the US has been shrinking dramatically over the last decade and a half but back in the day the big three network late shows got 10 million viewers. That's never happening again. They can't even really measure it any more.
BTW. Last weeks numbers for US late night shows:
NBC “Tonight,” 3.829 million viewers
CBS “Late Show,” 3.148 million viewers
ABC “Kimmel,” 2.627 million viewers *
PS. I used to do advertising media buying back in the day. Talk about dead industry.
That said, 3-4 million viewers is nothing to sneeze at.
There are certainly systemic culture issues at play, but its occurring much lower on the totem pole. The issue is in the minor leagues, not the majors. Colbert is clearly the most viable candidate to elevate from the minors to the majors, there is just a shortage of women/people of color in the minor leagues. Let's also see who takes Colbert's slot on Comedy Central.
Didn't Wanda Sykes have a late variety show only to have it canceled within 6 months due to poor viewership.
Proper Response: "What a bunch of bullshit."
Alternate Proper Response: "This is a bunch of bullshit for the following reasons..."
Improper Response: "God, you social justice minorities are fucking insufferable! We already gave up the N-word, slavery, and internment camps! When is enough gonna be enough with you people?"
There seems to be nothing that clueless white people love more than taking invalid racism claims and turning them into valid ones.
Colbert is funny as hell, but he's also a man of the people. I can't wait to see what he does.
I guess the one good thing I can think of Colbert doing in Letterman's spot is bring on better people to interview. He's always been a great interviewer and he doesn't do exclusively movie/tv/pop/rock stars- he's interviewed a ton of politicians, authors, and activists on the Report. I hope he'll keep doing that in this new spot.