The State of Late Night

Long story short, oof and ugh...

After the news that Desus & Mero were giving up their Showtime show and the sudden cancelation of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee over on TBS, I was asked to comment on the state of late night television for an LA Times article. Well, YOU KNOW I had tons to say. Maybe too much? Because the article didn’t use any of my quotes, LOL! (It happens. Journalists are on deadlines. They don’t have time or space to make giant run-on sentences work in their very limited column inches. I know the drill!)

Anyhoozle, I thought I’d share the writer’s questions with my comments here since late night TV is something we talk a lot about on the podcast. Also, I feel empty inside when a newspaper deprives me of the opportunity to publicly say career-destroying things!

--Does it seem to you like late night TV is going through a moment of transition? How would you describe it? 

I've been wondering if late night TV isn't going through a moment, or an era, of stagnation. The other day I saw a headline about one of the hosts destroying a political figure, and it was a pretty mild, lazy joke. For fun I searched Twitter and saw how many non-late night hosts had been making a version of the exact same joke all day long and hours before it was on TV. Many people had! To me it feels like we desperately need some reinvention. Not sure things are headed that way, though. It feels like we're stagnant or maybe even regressing?

--What are the biggest challenges to launching a late night show in the current environment? 

When a network makes an investment in a late night show, they expect success, and the sooner the better. But someone pretty wise and very famous for creating successful late night shows once told me it really takes two years to know whether a late night talk show and host has what it takes to succeed. Two years! I have seen that happen for some talents, but I don't believe "riskier" hosts (who aren't, well, white males) can always count on such a long runway. Networks/platforms now seem to mitigate the risk they're willing to take on a new show or host by picking them up for one night a week instead of four or five, or they'll ask the team to produce a show on a microbudget, sometimes with really arduous shooting schedules also intended to reduce costs, while also destroying the possibility of true topicality. Sometimes, all of those things at the same time! But the expectation that a show maintains high production value, while quickly building a loyal fan base despite having a fraction of the time to do it, at a fraction of the cost, can be near impossible. I worry that newer, smaller shows can burn up most of their creativity and innovation trying to figure out how to cram a week's worth of material into 22 minutes, and produce it with fewer resources and less support. All that energy should be going toward coming up with fresh ideas audiences can get excited about. Especially when they have to stay excited for 6 nights between shows so they remember to come back and watch again!

Even under really tough circumstances, some of our smaller shows manage to gain critical acclaim and win all kinds of awards, but even that seems like it's not always enough to survive a ratings lull. Meanwhile, the guys on the big networks with the big budgets are constantly in this horse race trying to move up from 3rd to 2nd or 2nd to 1st and to send someone else back down to 3rd, but regardless of where they fall on a given week or month, those shows and those hosts don't seem to be going anywhere, for the most part. Except for James Corden.

--What obstacles did you face at "Busy Tonight"? Was there a lack of financial/creative/marketing support from the network? Did the landscape just feel too crowded? (You launched at a time when there was a lot of turnover in late night)

"Busy Tonight" was a show with a very small budget, a teeny staff and a host that was new to late night. I think one of the biggest challenges for us was that our audience was something like 10 years younger than the average late night viewer, which would ordinarily be very desirable, but was the age group that, pre-streaming explosion, was cutting the cord with cable. Anecdotal, but once, our entire audience was filled with kids studying TV at UCLA and we did a Q&A with them after the taping. We asked how many had cable and nobody raised their hand! E! was also going through some changes. Executive shakeups. The Kardashians' time there was coming to a close. We didn't really have a regular solid lead-in and the network moved our time slot halfway through the six months we were on the air. We also struggled with impressing on anyone how important it was that we be allowed to leverage YouTube and social media to our advantage to help build our audience. Many clips from our show went pretty viral on channels controlled by other networks or personalities before we were allowed to post them online ourselves, if at all, so we lost all that traffic. It was kind of a perfect storm of all the things you wouldn't want while you were trying to launch a fledgling show, but it wasn't shocking.

--It seems like most of the shows getting canceled or coming to an end are fronted by women and POC. Why do you think their shows are more at risk or more vulnerable? 

I think shows fronted by women and all people of color are more vulnerable because misogyny and racism still exist. A lot of people get worked up when you point to these things as a reason, because nobody wants to think that we still have a problem or that they could somehow be a part of that problem. However, you cannot look at the past history of late night TV, or the current state, and try to say that there is anything approaching equity, equality or parity. 

A lot of people will then say, "Well, the shows that were given to people other than white men just haven't been successful enough! And it's a business, after all!" It may be true that when you put someone who isn't a white guy on TV that you automatically start out battling some internalized and externalized misogyny and/or racism inherent in the entertainment industry and in your audience. But to create any kind of change requires a commitment to doing everything you can to make that change work, even if the realization of profit isn't immediate. Even when you lose some money. The TV business has always been capable of pressing for change and setting the cultural agenda, when it has wanted to. They can afford it. It's the right thing to do. A lot of it, honestly, is probably just letting people have enough time to get used to seeing someone in a place where they're not used to seeing them. 

Obviously people don't hate seeing a woman hosting a talk show! Women have helmed some of TV's most legendary talk show juggernauts, both comedic and non, just not usually after the sun goes down.

However, by continuing to just do things the way they've always been done, TV risks leaving huge swaths of potential viewers underserved and unsatisfied. So, you have to ask yourself why they wouldn't want things to change?

--Do you think there is any fatigue with political comedy?  

I think there is some fatigue with *some* political comedy. 

I know there have been many times over the past several years I've been hired to write political material and I find myself struggling because, honestly, what our country has gone through isn't funny. It's terrifying. While I think that humor can be the best way to get a salient point across to an audience who is looking to be informed, but would like that pill wrapped in a little cheese, I think trying to make funnies about how fascism is creeping up behind us is maybe sometimes harmful and that we, as a country, might have to belatedly learn how to take serious things seriously.

All that being said, conservative late night host Greg Gutfeld's show on Fox News has sometimes been beating Stephen and the Jimmies lately. So, while I don't think his comedy is very good, personally, there is apparently an audience that wants it. I was comforted to read that this week, Dr. Pimple Popper beat Greg, though. Go pus!

--Audiences across all of TV, including late night, are increasingly fractured. So why does late night (and representation in late night) still matter? 

In the face of increasingly fractured TV audiences, especially in late night, I think the reason representation still matters is mostly because we've never completely achieved it. In many other jobs that were once white/male dominated, we've seen at least some encouraging change and can hopefully say things won't go back to how they were. But when it comes to the Presidency and late night TV, we're still wondering when those barriers will be completely broken for good. If it weren't for that, I don't know that people like me would be so keen on clinging to a TV format that's been around since 1949. (Hosted by a woman, BTW! But only 15 minutes long, LOL!)

I also think that, for audiences, it's a shame that we have several shows now that are pretty interchangeable in terms of content, but when the Supreme Court came for reproductive rights, there were so few hosts with uteruses who could truly speak to the issue from their own personal lived experiences. If we're going to constantly talk about how important comedy is and how imperative it is that we not censor the voices of these great thinkers who speak truth to power, we need to take a close look at who we're empowering to speak, where and how often.

--Are there any shows (other than yours) that you're sad to see go? 

I was sad way back when Samantha Bee wasn't made the host of The Daily Show after Jon Stewart departed, and I'm sad to see her TBS show go. I've always been a huge fan of Amber Ruffin's, since I first saw her perform improv. To say that I am rooting for her show to go on for as many years as she can physically do it is an understatement. Her show is unlike anything else out there right now. It's really good. Not to put too much pressure on Amber, but we really need her!

--How would you like me to credit you? 

Caissie St.Onge, TV producer/comedy writer, co-host of "Busy Philipps is Doing Her Best" podcast - whatever works for you!

By the way, you can read the (very good and not in any way lacking for not using my comments) article here: What late night's losses show