Fallon isn't a winner, at least not yet. At best, he is lucky... luckier than his talent merits. NBC will keep him on at least until the next merger or regime-change brings in new top brass, but he won't get the ratings Conan had when he had the show. We are witnessing the slow demise of late night talk shows. They may continue to exist in a drastically altered fashion (like Daily Show/Colbert Report), but the variety-style entertainment program is dying. Letterman's lampooning of the genre when he began Late Night has mainstreamed it to the point nobody takes the format seriously anymore -- he worked so hard at the appearance of being an affable dullard that network executives were convinced an actual dullard like Fallon could host.
CBS will keep Dave because they've seen the other networks struggle and fumble with new host transitions... keeping him is easier than any proposed alternative. While some see Jon Stewart at the heir apparent to Dave, CBS recalls the disaster the last time they ripped someone out of the Daily Show hosting chair onto a talk show. Fox has never been able to maintain an established presence in late night because of the minimal amount of programing the network offers. ABC will eventually drop Nightline and could get some respect by auditioning some alternative concepts in late night, but I doubt anybody at that network is brave enough to think out of the box. Besides, I don't think Kimmel works as a lead-in to anything, not because I don't like him, but because people who do like him are conditioned to turn the TV off or switch away when the show ends. I've heard nothing about Arsenio's numbers anywhere, but I don't think syndicated late night is a money-maker for anybody anymore. And if people are watching Chelsea Lately, they don't travel in the same social media circles that I do. In the end, whoever is the perceived winner in late night, the loser would seem to be the average viewer. On Sun, Feb 16, 2014 at 12:17 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Leno took back his Tonight Show chair after the last Winter Olympics 4 > years ago. In the aftermath of that whole debacle, he ultimately must be > counted as one of the losers. He got four more years, but his reputation > suffered and he only stayed long enough to actually get fired a second > time, still exiting the stage before Dave, and forever occupying basically > the same space as the Beverly Hillbillies (another program cancelled with > great ratings because it did not appeal to a lucrative demographic). If he > had refused the primetime show, or even accepted its failure with grace, > and just transitioned to elder stand up comic statesman and done 4 NBC > comedy specials a year, his legacy would have been far shinier. > > Conan of course is the big loser from all of that; I suppose he is happy > enough at TBS, and TBS is probably happy with him, but if NBC had kept its > word to him and Leno had not participated in the coup, he would be the > Tonight Show host for another 15 years or so, and would likely be the > ratings leader for most of that time. Kimmell certainly would not have been > able to position himself as some kind of insurgent alternative to the > corporate suck-up at Tonight if Conan were there, and maybe would even have > stayed at 12:05. In any case Kimmell is the #2 winner in all this, entering > the new era as hipper than CBS and more experienced than NBC. Dave is > pretty much a wash, unless he or others count outlasting Leno as a win (I > confess I kind of do - Dave started before Leno and finishes after him). He > enters the new era as unambiguously the old guy, and the pressure will no > doubt built on CBS to go younger, though unless and until a compelling > candidate emerges I don't expect that pressure to get too intense for a > while. He probably is a marginal winner, in that if NBC had stayed with > Conan and Kimmell had moved to 11:35, the pressure to replace Dave with > someone younger would have built earlier. > > Fallon obviously is the huge winner here. If NBC had not prematurely > dumped Leno in the first place, he never would have gotten the 12:35 show > (and if that gig were just opening now, one doubts it would go to him), and > he is only getting the biggest chair in late night because NBC screwed the > pooch with Conan. He has a nice and likable enough persona that he should > do okay, though I would expect more dispersion among the audience, and > netflix may actually be the biggest winner of all this. > > > -- > -- > 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 > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! 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