I find most of the political articles over at Salon to be worth reading and generally on the mark. Even when I disagree with them, I at least feel the person writing the piece understands how politics works in general. This is not so with most of the pieces there about television, especially late night television.
Here's an exception. It's Sarah Burris writing about Stephen Colbert's disappointing ratings. She makes a number of sound points including the fact that while people say his liberal politics are alienating some viewers, equally-liberal politics aren't crashing some other shows. Me, I think Colbert's problem is that he hasn't yet figured out a way to make his show different enough.
It's kind of the same problem Leno had when he first took over The Tonight Show and it was like he was still guest-hosting for Johnny instead of doing his own program. It doesn't feel like Colbert's doing David Letterman's show but it also doesn't feel quite like he's doing his own yet.
That said, I still like his show — even some interviews with folks who'd be of no interest to me if someone else was interviewing them. I'm quite willing to wait until he finds himself and from what I'm hearing, so is CBS.