Late-night TV has become a desolate nightmare

Photo courtesy of Randy Holmes of ABC

Late-night talk shows have been on a steady decline for years; the once-popular medium doesn’t have the same draw that it used to. The style is becoming outdated and outclassed by more accessible forms of entertainment. Even the showrunners are aware of this – which is probably why they have been exclusively trying to generate clips to put on YouTube and TikTok for the past several years.

So, what happened? Well, for starters, the style is just plain stale. Most nights, these shows follow a certain pattern: the host gives a monologue (and tries their best at being funny), they interview a guest, they do some kind of skit with said guest, they maybe throw in a musical act, and they rinse and repeat until the show is over. 

These events typically happen in this order on a nightly basis, and that gets tiring for a viewer. The shows aren’t willing to innovate or change their style. 

The nail in the coffin for this lack of originality was James Corden ending his Carpool Karaoke segment and, interestingly, his whole show. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of this segment, at least it was original. It was the only thing breathing life into an otherwise lifeless show, and they axed it. While that is just one example from one show, it’s not like anyone else was trying to change the format either. You can’t convince me that 90% of late-night hosts don’t have a strict fill-in-the-blank script that they just change slightly depending on what guests they have on that night. 

Vivvix, an ad revenue tracking company, reported there has been a 41% decrease in late-night show revenue in only five years. So the public is obviously losing interest as well. The only current host who does anything different than the rest is Eric Andre, but he hardly counts. His show, “The Eric Andre Show,” is basically a comedy set in a late-night show as opposed to being a normal talk show.

You can tell that their guests aren’t going on these talk shows for their enjoyment. The only reason any celebrity goes on is to promote something. It’s never just, “Here’s me hanging out with my good friend Jimmy,” it’s always, “Here’s me hanging out with my good friend Jimmy. While you’re at it, go see my new movie in theaters!” Even the musical guests don’t bother appearing on the show unless they have some sort of project waiting in the wings.

Am I insinuating that celebrities strongly dislike a lot of late-night hosts? No, that would be ridiculous, but I wouldn’t fault you if you didn’t like them. There are so many hosts nowadays that are either bland and unfunny or sometimes just bad people. 

Very few people care about any of these hosts. Bill Maher just recently crossed the picket line of the current WGA strike to attempt to resume his show without writers. Now tell me, did you even know that before you read this? Follow up – has your life changed even slightly now that you have this information? Of course not! All he does is complain about young people and yell at clouds! Who cares about him or his show? 

With the popularization of podcasts, these shows are losing purpose. Most late-night hosts do podcasts now, so what is the point of tuning in at a specific time when you can listen to a podcast at any time of the day? A podcast is much simpler to set up, and you can pump them out more easily. Podcasts also allow their hosts to show more charisma and be themselves. 

The sad state of late-night can be boiled down to this: showrunners are more concerned with keeping their income growing because people are still watching, but they can’t keep that up forever. People are already consuming other forms of entertainment and getting more enjoyment elsewhere. They can keep beating the dead horse, but the downfall of the style has become an inevitability.