{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Paul Truesdell Podcast","title":"Late Night Murder","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1675,"description":"I grew up with late night television. You grew up with late night television. A lot of us who are baby boomers grew up with it. But let us be honest—it has long since been dead. Late night television basically ended when Jay Leno and David Letterman finished their runs. To be even more precise, it really ended when Jay Leno came back and kicked Conan O'Brien off the air. That was the last straw. I probably watched for the last time right around then. I am not unaware of what has been on since, but really—who has the time for it? The entire format is gone, and it is not coming back.The truth is, the late night model was born in the mid-1950s. Steve Allen invented it, Jack Paar fine-tuned it, and Johnny Carson perfected it. Carson’s reign was the standard. Millions tuned in every night. At his peak, Carson pulled 17 million people on average, with a high of 45 million. That was not just television, that was cultural gravity. But gravity eventually weakens, and by the time Leno, Letterman, and then Conan came along, the cycle was already in decline. The format was stretched thin, copied endlessly, and parodied. From Merv Griffin and Joan Rivers to Chevy Chase and even the Larry Sanders Show, everybody knew the formula. And when the formula becomes predictable, it becomes stale. By the time Colbert, Fallon, and Kimmel took over, the genre was just recycling its own shadows.The numbers tell the story. The current late night shows—Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon—each pull around a million viewers a night. Of that, maybe 200,000 fall into the so-called “demo” age range of 25–54 that advertisers want. Compare that to Carson’s 17 million, or even Letterman and Leno routinely getting five, six, or seven million, and the drop-off is astounding. Even more astounding is the cost. Colbert’s show alone cost CBS about $100 million a year to produce. He was paid $15 to $20 million himself. The show carried a staff of 200. And with all of that, it was losing $40 million a year. And here...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/115-XsjkdwCpJ99xv-8oZ76t6jr8ScWEC5MYSKzL0ig/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS82MTUx/OWRiNTc0NTk0Y2Nk/M2VjYTliMGVhN2Zm/YTZkZi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}