> Granted, I'm a big Ferguson booster, but it's hard to miss the lack of > discussion of his show, for good or bad.
That is a glaring omission. > All of the concerns expressed when both Dave and Conan shifted from > 12:30 to 11:30 seem applicable to Ferguson, perhaps even more so. I can't > see his 'can you believe we're doing this crap' attitude surviving in a > marquee timeslot (to the extent that still matters). In Late Shift 2, Carter quoted someone about how at 12:30, it's about the stuff that doesn't work; at 11:30, it's about stuff that works. Ferguson likes to talk about "deconstructing the talk show" now, which is reminiscent of Conan and Dave before him. It's much harder to do that deconstruction at 11:30, and I think Craig is smart enough to grasp that. Watching him interact with his sidekick now that Geoff is "live" leads me to believe that SCG could make a more traditional show work. Whether he's willing to do more standard interviews is an open question. > Whatever the merits to > Feguson's show, I don't see how he draws better numbers at 11:35 than Dave > does, and his shiny, new thing buzz, so strong only a year or less ago, > seems to have been largely taken over by Fallon. I don't think anyone would expect better numbers, especially as the network audience continues to fragment. > I still love me some Dave - and his shows this summer, especially since the > jihad, have been particularly strong. If I was Dave's executive producer I > would make sure he was the target of some attack at least once per quarter - > it always brings out the best in him, in terms both of his own interest in > the show, and his creativity. In the late '80s, I pretty much gave up on Carson. He'd fallen into his routines, and many of the guests who interested him were the ones I thought of as past their expiration dates. (Once Johnny announced he was leaving, everything seemed to pick up.) Part of Dave's allure doing Late Night was that he was able to make fun of the format, without, I realize, making fun of Carson. I can imagine that people who've come along since, say, Dave went to CBS feel that same staleness in his shows that I felt with the late '80s Tonight Shows. (Even us fans can do without "the thing on Trump's head" and "the squirrels in Central Park".) > One of his problems in the last 10 or 15 years > is his rather good relationship with Moonves - Dave does his best work when > he thinks he is working for assholes or pinheads. This is true, although I also think that Dave isn't as anxious to get into fights as he's matured. > I don't agree that the traditional late night format has runs its course. I > do agree that they are overproducing this type of show, slicing the audience > so thin no one program will ever have the kind of dominance Johnny, or even > Dave & Leno, once had. As a viewer I would rather see just one or two of > these shows on the air, so we don't get such a diluted or re-hashed set of > guests and jokes and ideas, but I don't buy the idea that from the main > broadcast/cable perspective, Leno, Letterman, Kimmel or O'Brien is anything > other than a net profit-center (including the promotional base it gives them > for the rest of their shows). It seems that the 11:30 network shows are necessarily going to shoot for the biggest audiences, with the sort of approach that implies, while their cable competitors will happily go after niches. You're right about how things would improve if there weren't so many similar programs doing similar things, but since you're also right about these shows' profitability, we' re unlikely to see much contraction. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
