If you’re anything like me, the American late night talk shows hold a special place in your heart. I associate the mahogany wood desk furnishings and fake New York City backdrops with nights spent in front of the TV; the cool glow from the screen illuminating my living room walls as household names like Jimmy Kimmel and James Corden fill up the silence that only exists when the sky gets dark.
That’s exactly the problem though. The nostalgic and almost old, timey quality of late night talk shows is the first hint of a declining genre of entertainment. Whether we realise it or not, we’re beginning to see the end days of late night talk shows.
Falling revenue
The genre of late night talkshows has quietly but steadily been suffering from as early as 2014. Back when these shows were still raking in millions of views on the networks and when posted online was when the fall first began. We’ve reached a point where ad revenue has plummeted by more than 50%, a point that deems late night financially unsustainable to continue.
Budget cuts across the networks
The fall in profitability has prompted many networks to react accordingly.
NBC opted to cut back on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from five nights to four nights a week. Friday nights will now see reruns instead of a brand new episode. NBC’s other talk show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, had to drop their in-house band, citing budget cuts as the main reason. Last year, we said goodbye to The Late Late Show with James Corden after an 8-year run. This came after the show failed to break even, which forced CBS to replace the show with After Midnight, a comedy game show that was less costly to produce.
Interestingly, the tapering off of late night talk shows seems to correspond with the uptick in the trend of podcasting. Coincidence? I beg to differ.
If you really think about it, late night talk shows and podcasts share a lot of similarities. But they are very different in nature too. And it is this difference that allows the podcasting format to skyrocket in popularity as talk shows take a hit.
The Weaknesses of Talk Shows Are The Strengths of Podcasts
Listen whenever, wherever
The talk show format saw its origins in the fact that there didn’t used to be very many late night entertainment options that went on after regular programming back then. Late night talk shows became the easy default option for many to tune into when the nights grew dark and the house grew quiet.
However, times have changed. With the emergence of the Internet, streaming, and social media, everyone has access to on-demand content 24/7. You and I are faced with the choice of catching up with the newest reality show, watching vlogs posted on YouTube, or listening to weekly hour-long podcast episodes, but without needing to follow a network’s schedule of when to watch what.
From putting it on out of convenience to consuming with intention
With this plethora of options available to consumers, many are becoming more discerning and picky about what they’re watching in their free time. If they’re not enjoying an episode, they can simply turn it off, and switch to another show.
Because of this trend, it seems like the late night talk shows that used to grace our living rooms so often slowly fell through the cracks, its popularity superseded by the latest flick on Netflix or Hulu.
No longer is it sufficient to be there at the right place and the right time because there simply is no right time anymore. Content options are now competing on entertainment value instead of convenience, and late night talk shows are losing out.
This falls in line with trends that we’re observing in podcasting. While podcasts used to be something convenient to put on in the background when you’re busy doing something else, they have shifted to become a form of entertainment that listeners are setting aside time to consume. That is to say, they’re consuming no longer out of convenience, but with intention.
Beloved by all or no one
Because late night talk shows had to entice watchers of all ages, backgrounds, and interests, many of these shows were broad in the way they structured their content. Beloved stars grace the sets of these talk shows to promote their latest project
Contrast this with podcasting, which sole value proposition is catering to a niche but highly valuable audience. There are podcasts about anything and everything in the universe. A quick search on Podseeker, our podcast database, reveals close to a 100 different sub-genres, all with numerous active podcasts striving to cater to a segmented but highly valuable audience.
What Can We Learn From Late Night?
That’s not to say that there are no merits to late night. There are actually a few key takeaways that we can extract about why the genre performed so well initially.
One thing that late night and podcasting have in common are the personalities. Both are heavily reliant on having hosts that are able to lead the conversation, make guests feel comfortable, and prompt answers from them when necessary.
If you pay close enough attention, each late night host has a different style of presenting and hosting, which allows each and every one of them to set themselves apart from the rest.
As Fitzgerald puts it in this Forbes article,
“Carson continually tweaked the show based on what worked. Letterman added his own special spin on things. Fallon plays to his past as a Saturday Night Live cast member to add games and sketches to the show. Kimmel’s and Colbert’s social commentary is smart and relevant.”
And that’s the main thing I want to point out. In order for you as a podcaster to stand out in what is becoming an increasingly saturated space, it’s important to know your strengths and play to them. Think about how your podcast and you as a host differ from everyone else, and hone in on that difference. Because ultimately, that’s what will draw eyes (or ears, I guess) to you.
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