Why Are Late Night Comedy Shows Dying…Fast?

You know those four-day work weeks everybody wants?  Well, Jimmy Fallon is finally getting one.  The "Tonight Show" is going to four days a week. So much for late night every night!

There was a time when pretty much all of America tuned into one late night show and that was the Tonight Show with the all time greatest host, Johnny Carson. If you wanted to take the proverbial "pulse" of the country, all you had to do was watch his nightly monologue which covered the events of the day.

Johnny would poke fun of the nation's leaders and you wouldn't know which side of the political aisle he was on. He would never let on as to who he would vote for on the Presidential election side of things.

Gone are the days of non-political hosts, now you now exactly where they stand (all Democrats) and who they can't stand (Republicans). It started to lean in this direction during the Late Night with David Letterman days when he would poke fun and sometimes very mean spiritedly of George W. Bush.

He was relentless on him and made it clear that for him, it was personal. There were times during those years that it became so obvious of Letterman's leaning that you would think he was on the DNC payroll.

After Letterman, all the hosts, Kimmel, Colbert and Fallon felt very free about their obvious disdain for Trump and the result of that was they lost half of their potential audience and that's why they are where they are now in my opinion.

If you don't lean in the political direction of the late night show, then odds are you are probably not going to find it funny and tune out. Hence...

Starting with the new fall season, there will be new episodes on Monday through Thursday, then a repeat on Friday night.

"Tonight" was actually the ONLY late-night show still doing five nights a week.  "Jimmy Kimmel Live", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", "Late Night with Seth Meyers", and "The Daily Show" all do four.

And Kimmel has been taking summers off for the past few years.

Fallon is signed with the "Tonight Show" through 2028.

It does beg the question; why are all of the late night talk/comedy shows dying? What is it that is killing off these shows one by one? Sure they're all still hanging on by a thread waiting for the others to die off first in the hope that less is actually more.

(Hollywood Reporter)

The Hollywood Reporter has released a new list of the top shows of the 21'st century and here are the Top 5 . This couldn't be an easy assignment because their have been so many great shows in the past 24 years. Some would say, that this is the real golden age of television. We have so many more outlets to watch shows on. There are at least 100 networks and streaming channels, everything from Disney to Apple TV to FUBU and Hulu.

Gone are the days of relying on only the so called Big Three Networks of ABC, CBS and NBC.  In the last century streaming your favorite shows and binging on episodes was only a dream. Now, you can not only devour a season of shows, you can devour every episode of that show in it's entirety.

It must have been a difficult task to narrow the list to the top 5. There are so many great shows that have been on since 2000, that narrowing the list down must have been quite a conversation for the folks at the Hollywood Reporter. What was the criteria? All the shows are wildly popular with not only the critics, but the viewers. These shows have mostly been on streaming services so they can tell exactly how many times they have been streamed and viewed. With the ability of viewers to rate the shows, they also can get a good idea of what the consumers think of the show. That kind of information wasn't available to the networks prior to the internet and the advent of streaming.

Ask anyone over the age of 45 and they will tell you that the best decades for t.v. was the 80's and 90's. The best sitcoms of all time were mostly in those years, everything from Cheers and Seinfeld to Family Ties and Friends. Those shows have been ranked many times over the years, so The Hollywood Reporter decided it was time to look at the new century.

According to IMDB...The streets of Baltimore as a microcosm of the US's war on drugs, and of US urban decay in general. Seen not only through the eyes of a few policemen and drug gang members but also the people who influence and inhabit their world - politicians, the media, drug addicts and everyday citizens.—grantss. I must admit that this is the one show on the top 5 list that I have yet to watch. After seeing this high ranking, it will definitely go into my watch list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOoB2pa9iNw
According to IMDB...Elizabeth "Liz" Lemon (Tina Fey) is the executive show-runner for a late-night sketch-comedy show called "The Girlie Show" that stars her close friend, major drama queen Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski). When GE hires a new Executive Vice President for NBC named Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), he decides to take Liz Lemon under his wing and turn around TGS, which for years has been unable to find the audience it deserves. To do so, he brings on unhinged, wildly unpredictable star Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to turn the series into a ratings hit. But Liz finds out that controlling her oddball writing staff, the NBC page program, keeping Tracy on a short leash, and getting him to get along with Jenna proves to be one disaster after another. Will TGS ever see true success? And will Liz find the right partner to get married and start a family?—halo1k. This show was so full of stars that it's hard to imagine what the network had to pay out to the talent. It was so successful that the money was pouring in enough to pay all the big time actors enough to keep the show on the air for a long run. Worth a re-watch for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzYxJV_rmE8
According to IMDB...The Roy family controls the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. As they fight for control of the company, and each other, their lack of morals is exposed at every turn. This family has no redeeming character values, and neither does any person attached to them. Watch them as they fight for the front seat on the bus to hell.—phoenixnraincry This is the newest show on the list and sadly ended too soon for most viewers, including me. We can only hope it comes back, even as a movie because the writing and acting was so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKLor3gpaPo
According to IMDB...An innovative look at the life of fictional Mafia Capo Tony Soprano, this serial is presented largely first person, but additional perspective is conveyed by the intimate conversations Tony has with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Moments of black comedy intersperse this aggressive, adult drama, with adult language, and extreme violence.—ahmetkozan Gangster tv at it's best. We are not suppose to root for the bad guys, but these guys were so good that you had to. Sadly James Gandolfini is no longer with us. A great talent gone too soon.

According to IMDB...The professional and personal lives of those who work in advertising on Madison Avenue - self-coined "mad men" - in the 1960s are presented. The stories focus on those at one of the avenue's smaller firms, Sterling Cooper, and its various incarnations over the decade. At the heart of these stories is Donald Draper, the creative genius of the company. That professional creative brilliance belies the fact of a troubled childhood, one that he would rather forget and not let anyone know about except for a select few, but one that shaped who he is as an adult and as an ad man in the need not only to sell products but sell himself to the outside world. His outward confidence also masks many insecurities as evidenced through his many vices, such as excessive smoking, drinking and womanizing - the latter despite being a family man - and how he deals with the aftermath of some of the negative aspects of his life.—Huggo If you have never seen Mad Men please trust us, this is a great show. You will love how it moved through the decades of the late 50's and ending in the early 70's with a very cool hippy dippy way. As a matter of fact, I could start it all over again and still enjoy these Mad Men.