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Colbert and the End of Late-Night TV – WSJ

By Thomas A. Smith

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are certain Stephen Colbert is the victim of politics. It s true that his Late Show has lately been the No. 1 program, of its format, in its slot, on the legacy networks. But that s a load of qualifiers for a show on broadcast TV, which hardly anyone watches anymore. YouTube has replaced Johnny Carson s desk as the image of America at bedtime.

Mr. Colbert has 2.4 million viewers most nights less than 1% of the country. It s a tiny fraction of Carson s viewership at a time when the nation was smaller. The Late Show s audience has fallen more than 30% in the past five years, and even more among the critical 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Mr. Colbert s operation reportedly costs north of $100 million annually, and hemorrhaged $40 million last year, nearly half being the host s salary.

Mr. Colbert deserves criticism for pursuing a niche segment through politicization, but the digital explosion inevitably means smaller average audiences and less shared experience for each particular program. That s why the news here isn t Mr. Colbert s firing but rather the mothballing of the Late Show itself. The myth of monoculture is retiring.

Political content with a splash of comedy isn t exiting the stage; it retains a narrow but deep audience. That s why Gutfeld!, the Fox evening show that also doesn t attempt to persuade or entertain beyond its core audience, has a significantly larger viewership than the Late Show. But it does so on cable, not pretending to be a part of a broadcast common culture.

That, ultimately, is why the end of the Late Show matters historically. Mr. Colbert wasn t attempting something as important as what Carson did or his heirs David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O Brien. As much as they made a meaningful mark on American culture, they weren t essential to the life of the republic. But this fading of an era is occasion to acknowledge that having some shared things does matter to a stable political culture.

via www.wsj.com

Ben Sasse.