Here's Brian Stelter with a piece about late night TV and its future — if it even has one. Of special interest to me is the suggestion that James Corden's show ended because it was so expensive and losing so much money. I would love to know how much more his Late, Late Show cost over Craig Ferguson's.
Ferguson's ratings were pretty impressive, especially when you consider that he worked with a tiny budget, a tiny writing staff, no band or musical director, no sidekick for his first few years (he eventually had to have one built for him), very little money for remotes or sketches and at times, a pretty low-rated lead-in. Even when Letterman was pulling down decent ratings for the hour, his last fifteen minutes weren't watched by too many people besides Paul Shaffer.
I'd also love to know how much less than his competition (i.e., Conan O'Brien) Ferguson had to work with and what kind of restrictions Letterman put on the show that followed his. I can believe that Corden chose to leave at this time because of other, more interesting offers and also fatigue, as he sure seemed to work hard…but I wonder if he'd have stayed even this long if he'd had to play the hand Mr. Ferguson was dealt.
As for Stelter's pessimistic outlook on the future of late night programming…there will of course be shows in that time slot. They just may not be in the Johnny/Dave/Jay tradition and that may be a good thing. Stelter describes the decrease in audience favor for that kind of show and it roughly mirrors my own. As I've written here before, I'd like to see those shows have more spontaneity as well as less editing and fewer interviews that were written by the publicists for the Big Name Guest's new movie, TV show, album or live appearance.
I do know another reason why I no longer TiVo all the late night shows. Once upon a time, there was the fear that if you didn't watch (or at least record), you might miss something wonderful. Now, we all know that when something wonderful happens on one of those shows, it will be available the next day and for a long time after on YouTube. And to get to it, you won't have to wade through the non-wonderful parts and the commercials. I don't know about you but watching TV shows on cable, sans commercials, has made me less tolerant of watching programs laced with them.