This article notes that Jimmy Fallon's ratings, which once had him firmly in First Place in Late Night have dropped and he's darn close to coming in third. Popular wisdom would have it that it's because the other guys slam Trump almost on a nightly basis and Fallon doesn't, at least not with the fervor and sharpness of the others.
Obviously, I am all in favor of ridiculing the guy in the White House and can't see how anyone who writes comedy could resist all the opportunities he provides. Back when NBC was airing those Dean Martin roasts, I contributed some gags and talked a bit with Harry Crane, who was the Head Writer, and a guy who probably wrote as many jokes as any man who has ever lived. Harry would talk about "hooks," a hook being an aspect of someone about which you could write a joke. If they were doing a roast of (let's say) Jackie Gleason, you could do jokes about him being fat, jokes about him drinking to excess, jokes about him chasing the dancers on his show, jokes about him having servants waiting on him night and day, etc.
Each of those was a hook. Harry was complaining that the network kept asking that the roasts be about certain Big Stars who did not come with a lot of hooks. How do you write an hour of insults about Gregory Peck?
We can all argue about how Donald Trump will be viewed by history…and of course, a lot of that will have to do with what he does or doesn't do in the next few years. But I think he may already have clinched the mantle among comedy writers as the public figure with the most hooks…of all time.
I would like to suggest though that the decline of Fallon's ratings might not be exactly because he doesn't insult Trump enough. It's close but I think the problem is that his show isn't topical enough. Regardless of our political persuasions, we are all paying so much attention to the news these days that he seems disengaged. You know that Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers, Trevor Noah and other guys on at those hours are living in the same country at the same time as you do. When Fallon does mention what's in the news, it seems perfunctory and like someone told him he had to mention it.
This is in accord with a trend that's been evident for some time in late night: Viewers won't watch old shows. Once upon a time, Mr. Carson could air year-old reruns and get a decent audience. Today's late night shows don't dare go back that far. The minute a reference "dates" the show, a lot of viewers change channels. They've come to expect that a program like The Tonight Show will be about tonight, and when something in the news grabs their attention — and lately, there's always something — they expect the late night shows to say something of substance about it. Fallon's a nice enough guy but he doesn't seem as interested in what's happening right now as the other fellows.