Late-Night Networks Rethink 11:35 p.m. Format After Colbert Exit
Updated
Updated · Forbes · May 20
Late-Night Networks Rethink 11:35 p.m. Format After Colbert Exit
11 articles · Updated · Forbes · May 20
CBS’s shutdown of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is accelerating calls for networks to overhaul late-night TV rather than simply replace one traditional host with another.
Online video, social media and direct celebrity-to-fan channels have eroded the format’s old advantages, while audiences watching after local news have fallen sharply over the past decade.
CBS’s plan to give Colbert’s 11:35 p.m. slot to Byron Allen’s cheaper, nontraditional “Comics Unleashed” is cited as a sign that economics now favor lower-cost experiments over legacy formulas.
Proposed fixes include booking younger hosts born after 1990, investing more in substantive interviews, and creating unscripted event-driven moments that can still break through on YouTube and Reels.
The broader challenge for networks is to make late night feel essential again for viewers who now spend their nights on phones instead of TVs.
Can late-night TV survive when celebrities now share their biggest moments directly on social media?
As cost-cutting replaces major hosts with 'content mills,' is the creative heart of late-night television officially dying?