United States 1940s–1960s Late-night talk shows had their genesis in early variety shows, a format that migrated to television from radio, where it had been the dominant form of light entertainment during most of the
old-time radio era.
The Pepsodent Show, which opened each weekly episode with host
Bob Hope's rapid-fire, topical and often political
observational comedy, was a particularly important predecessor to the late-night format. Early television variety shows included
The Ed Sullivan Show (originally known as
Toast of the Town), which aired on
CBS Sunday nights from 1948 to 1971, and
Texaco Star Theater with
Milton Berle, which aired on NBC from 1948 to 1956. These shows aired once a week in evening time slots that would come to be known as
prime time. The first show to air in a late-night timeslot itself,
Broadway Open House, aired on NBC in 1950 and ended a year later after host
Jerry Lester left the show, a combination of frustration with being upstaged by his sidekick
Virginia "Dagmar" Lewis, burnout from having to go through a large amount of material in a short time, and the lack of enough television sets in the United States to make television broadcasting in late nights viable. (Lester himself was a last-minute replacement host for up-and-coming 26-year-old comic
Don Hornsby, whom Hope had recommended to NBC but who caught polio and died less than a week before the show began.) For the next season, the only late-night program on the networks was NBC's
Nightcap, a preview of the next day's programming hosted by
Mary Kay Stearns. The first late-night television talk show was
The Faye Emerson Show, hosted by actress
Faye Emerson. It began airing on CBS on October 24, 1949, in local East Coast markets before the network moved the 15-minute show, which regularly aired up to 11pm, nationwide in March 1950. In 1950, Emerson also hosted a similar show on NBC called
Fifteen with Faye for about six months before committing the CBS show. Emerson's show was distinguished from her competition on NBC in that she was more openly political; Emerson, an avowed
Democrat, regularly interviewed political and intellectual figures on her show (among them Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin) in addition to a smattering of vaudeville and variety acts. The first version of
The Tonight Show,
Tonight Starring Steve Allen, debuted in 1954 on
NBC. The show created many modern talk show staples including an opening monologue, celebrity interviews, audience participation, comedy bits, and musical performances; it also had some holdovers from the radio era, including a vocal group (
Steve and Eydie, who went on to decades of success after
Tonight) in addition to the house band, something that later late-night shows would abandon. By this point, the
Federal Communications Commission had lifted a freeze on new television stations, which allowed new stations to appear across the country, and television set sales soon grew exponentially. As a result, unlike
Broadway Open House,
Tonight proved to be a resounding success. The success of the show led Allen to receive another show, entitled
The Steve Allen Show, which would compete with
The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights. Meanwhile, hosting duties of
The Tonight Show were split between Allen and
Ernie Kovacs; Kovacs had defected to NBC from his own late-night show on the then-crumbling
DuMont Television Network. Both Allen and Kovacs departed from
Tonight in 1957 in order to focus on Allen's Sunday night show. After the two left, the format changed to something similar to
Today and was renamed
Tonight! America After Dark, hosted first by
Jack Lescoulie, and later by Al Collins, with interviews conducted by
Hy Gardner, and a
house band led by
Lou Stein performing. The show was not popular, leading to many NBC affiliates dropping the show. The show returned to the original format that year and was renamed
Tonight Starring Jack Paar. The even greater success of the show during Paar's hosting resulted in many NBC affiliates deciding to clear the show. He was noted for his conversational style, relatively high-brow interview guests, feuds with other media personalities (his animosity toward print journalists Ed Sullivan and
Walter Winchell marked a power shift from print to television; Winchell's career never recovered from the damage), and mercurial personality. Paar quit the show in 1960 in a dispute over a censored joke, but was allowed to come back a month later. He permanently left the show in 1962, saying that he could not handle the workload of
The Tonight Show (at the time, the show ran 105 minutes a day, five nights a week), and he moved to his own weekly prime-time show, which ran until 1965. After Paar's departure, hosting duties were filled by
Groucho Marx,
Mort Sahl, and many others. Johnny Carson took over as host of
The Tonight Show in 1962 and the show was renamed
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Carson streamlined the format of the show, focusing more on entertainment personalities, tweaking the monologue to feature shorter jokes, and emphasizing sketch comedy.
Ed McMahon served as Carson's announcer, while from 1962 to 1966, the band was led by
Skitch Henderson, who hired, among others,
Doc Severinsen. When Henderson left, Milton DeLugg took over. Severinsen assumed the position in 1967 and served as bandleader with the
NBC Orchestra. The show originated from
NBC Studios in New York City but, as part of Carson's shifting the show toward a more entertainment-oriented program, moved to
Burbank, California, in 1972. NBC's two other rivals during the early television era,
CBS and
ABC, did not attempt any major forays into late-night television until the 1960s. ABC's first effort at the late-night TV race was hosted by
Les Crane, which pioneered the controversial
tabloid talk show format that would not become popular until two decades later. With most viewers not accustomed to the visceral conflict it entailed, Crane's show lasted only six months. Shorter still was
The Las Vegas Show, a
Las Vegas-based late-night show hosted by
Bill Dana that was the only offering of the
United Network that ever made it to air (because that network only had a handful of affiliates, it also syndicated the program to CBS, ABC and independent stations); it, along with the network, only lasted five weeks in summer 1967. Steve Allen himself returned to NBC late night in syndication twice in this time frame, first with a show that ran from 1962 to 1964 and then with a series that ran from 1968 to 1971. ABC added the
Joey Bishop Show, with
Regis Philbin as his sidekick, to its late-night lineup in 1967, employing a talk show format, in an attempt to compete against the
Tonight Show, which lasted until 1969. CBS went without late-night TV (the closest thing it would have to a late-night show was its late-prime-time variety show
The Danny Kaye Show from 1963 to 1967) until 1969, when it acquired
The Merv Griffin Show from syndication; Griffin returned to syndication in 1972, and CBS would not air any further late-night talk shows until 1989, instead opting for reruns, lifestyle programs and, later, imported Canadian dramas in the time slot. By the 1960s, NBC had already cornered the market for late-night television viewing and would dominate the ratings for several decades in the future.
1970s–1980s ) followed a low-key interview format.A number of restrictions on television networks that took effect in 1971, among them a
nationwide prohibition on
tobacco advertising, the
requirement that a portion of prime time be set aside for local stations, and
rules prohibiting networks from also acting as syndicators, prompted NBC to extend its broadcast day by an additional hour with programming it hoped would recuperate some of its lost revenue. In 1973, NBC launched two new programs: a concert series,
The Midnight Special, that aired Friday nights, and a low-cost talk show,
The Tomorrow Show, hosted by
Tom Snyder, that aired Mondays through Thursdays. Both shows aired immediately following Carson's
Tonight Show at 1:00 a.m.
ET.
Tomorrow was different from
The Tonight Show. For instance, the show originally featured no studio audience, while Snyder would conduct one-on-one interviews with a cigarette in hand. Snyder's guest list was eclectic and would sometimes include the intellectuals and cultural and artistic figures that Carson had long since abandoned. Carson's new contract in 1980 allowed him to cut the length of his show from 90 minutes to 60 minutes, and for a short time,
Tomorrow was moved to an earlier timeslot, to fill the time gap left by Carson's move. NBC felt that Snyder's more conversational style would not bring in enough viewership in the earlier time slot, forcibly changed the show's format to resemble Carson's, and added gossip reporter
Rona Barrett as a co-host. The two did not get along and had an acrimonious relationship on and off the air. The agreement gave Carson's production company ownership of the timeslot following
Tonight, which Carson Productions and NBC used to create
Late Night with David Letterman on February 1, 1982. When NBC offered Snyder the time slot after Letterman, he refused it, having always been resentful of the forced change in format, and
NBC News Overnight, a newscast, took the slot instead, some months after ''Tomorrow's'' final broadcast in 1982. During his tenure as host of
The Tonight Show, Carson became known as
The King of Late Night. While numerous hosts (
Merv Griffin and
Dick Cavett being the best-known) attempted to compete with Carson, none was ever successful in drawing more viewers than Carson did on
Tonight, not even ABC's short-lived revival of Paar's show in 1973 using the name
Jack Paar Tonite (though Paar blamed erratic scheduling and his own unwillingness to succeed at the expense of Cavett, his friend and former writer). Much like Paar, Carson became tired of fulfilling the workload of 525 minutes a week, so
The Tonight Show was shortened to 90 minutes and again to 60 minutes in 1980 with 15 weeks of vacation a year. Because of a lack of competition, Carson was free to take time off (by 1980, he was only hosting three new shows a week) and have guest hosts on the show on a weekly basis, and for weeks at a time when Carson was on vacation, including
Joey Bishop (a former competitor of his),
Joan Rivers,
David Letterman,
Bob Newhart,
Don Rickles,
David Brenner and
Jerry Lewis. ABC opted not to compete against Carson with a late-night talk show. In 1980, it produced a pilot of a
Richard Dawson-hosted show called
Bizarre (it instead went to series on
Showtime with
John Byner as host) and, for two years, carried the weekly sketch comedy series
Fridays. ABC instead counterprogrammed Carson with a successful
news magazine entitled
Nightline, beginning in 1980. After 1980, Carson produced new shows only three nights a week with guest hosts and "Best of Carson" reruns the other two nights. From 1983 to 1986, Rivers and Brenner served as Carson's permanent guest hosts. Many in 1986, including top executives at NBC, thought it was possible that Johnny Carson would retire after reaching his 25th anniversary on October 1, 1987, as it was such a logical cut-off point. In the spring of 1986, a confidential memo between top NBC executives, listing about ten possible replacements in the event of Carson's retirement the next year, was leaked. When Rivers saw it, she was shocked to see that she was nowhere on the list despite the fact that she had been
The Tonight Show's permanent guest host since 1983. In 1986, Joan Rivers joined the brand-new
Fox network, where she hosted her own late-night talk show,
The Late Show, which competed directly against
The Tonight Show.
Clint Holmes served as Rivers' announcer while
Mark Hudson served as band leader. Carson was incensed that Rivers did not consult him beforehand and never spoke to her again. Brenner also left
Tonight in 1986, although he did so amicably, to launch a syndicated 30-minute late-night talk show called
Nightlife, which was canceled after one season. From 1986 to 1987
Garry Shandling, who had been a frequent guest host for Carson in the early 1980s, served as permanent guest host, alternating with
Jay Leno. He then left to focus on his cable program, ''
It's Garry Shandling's Show'', leaving Leno to be Carson's sole guest host. In June 1987,
Late Night with David Letterman, which had been running very successfully on NBC expanded from four to five nights per week, displacing the four-year-old
Friday Night Videos to the timeslot following it.
FNV, which had several subsequent format changes, ran until 2002. Rivers was fired from
The Late Show in 1987 after abysmal ratings and a battle with network executives, leading to her being replaced by
Arsenio Hall. Hall performed extremely well among viewers in the 18–49 demographic; however, Fox had already greenlit
The Wilton North Report to replace
The Late Show, leading to Hall hosting his own late-night talk show in syndication after
The Late Show was canceled in 1988.
The Late Show continued with several unknown hosts until its cancellation. Hall's syndicated show,
The Arsenio Hall Show, began in syndication in 1988, becoming more popular among younger viewers than Carson. Carson did not retire in 1987, instead continuing as host until 1992 with Leno as sole permanent guest host. The last network attempt at a Carson competitor, CBS's
The Pat Sajak Show, lasted less than 16 months, debuting in 1989 and being canceled in 1990. Beginning on August 22, 1988, NBC concluded its main programming for the day with a half-hour entry,
Later, hosted by NBC sportscaster
Bob Costas and airing at 1:35 a.m. Eastern, after Letterman, Mondays through Thursdays. It originated from
30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York and bore a strong resemblance to an earlier NBC late-night favorite, Tom Snyder's
Tomorrow, due to its lack of the typical late-night trappings in favor of a low-key but intense concentration upon Costas interviewing a single guest. Costas hosted the program until 1994.
1992–2009 Carson retired as host of
The Tonight Show in 1992 following his 30th anniversary as host. This garnered major media attention and speculation on who would replace him. The two candidates were
David Letterman (host of
Late Night since 1982) and
Jay Leno (Carson's regular guest host since 1987). Leno was eventually chosen, leading to Letterman leaving the NBC network for CBS to launch the direct competitor
Late Show with David Letterman in 1993.
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno debuted in 1992 and Letterman was replaced by newcomer
Conan O'Brien as host of
Late Night. Arsenio Hall's show lost numerous affiliates after Letterman's debut and his show was canceled one year later. Fox returned to late-night television in September 1993 with
The Chevy Chase Show. However, due to sagging ratings, disastrous reviews, and Chase's embitterment at not being allowed to present the program according to his preferences, the show was canceled the following month. MTV entered the late-night contest in 1993 when it debuted
The Jon Stewart Show, hosted by
Jon Stewart, which ran until 1995. In 1994 Bob Costas, the host of NBC's
Later, gave way to the host of the cable show
Talk Soup, Greg Kinnear, whose tenure was accompanied by a move to Burbank and toward a more conventional, audience-and-celebrity-driven format. Kinnear parlayed that experience into a movie career and stayed only two years; he left in 1996 and was succeeded by a plethora of fill-in hosts for the next four years. Letterman initially won the late-night ratings battle but fell behind Leno in 1995; Leno generally remained in first place until first leaving
Tonight in 2009. To combat NBC's
Late Night, CBS gave Letterman's studio
Worldwide Pants control of the post-
Late Show time slot, and premiered
The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder in 1995 — serving as a spiritual successor to Snyder's
Tomorrow. They had originally attempted to lure Bob Costas away from NBC and
Later (offering to have him host
The Late Late Show and become a correspondent for CBS's newsmagazine
60 Minutes), but were unsuccessful due to his desire to stay with
NBC Sports, as well as continuing his relationship with NBC chief
Dick Ebersol. Snyder departed
Tomorrow in 1999 and was succeeded by
Craig Kilborn. At this time,
The Late Late Show switched to a more conventional (albeit lower-budget) format in line with
Late Show and its competitors. Kilborn had previously served as host of
The Daily Show, a late-night satirical news program on
Comedy Central, and upon Kilborn's departure, Jon Stewart replaced him on that program. Perhaps one of the most unusual late-night hosts to come out of this boom was basketball player and later entrepreneur
Magic Johnson, whose syndicated
The Magic Hour was a major flop and effectively ended any future efforts from anyone else at a syndicated late-night talk show at that point in time.
ABC finally re-entered the late-night first-run comedy fray, after an absence of 15 years, in 1997 by placing
Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher (which had aired on
Comedy Central from 1993 to 1996) into its lineup after
Nightline. Unlike traditional late-night talk shows,
Politically Incorrect was a half hour in length and (following a brief host monologue) featured a panel of four guests debating topical issues while Maher moderated in a comedic fashion. With the new millennium in 2000, NBC's
Later finally got another permanent host after various figures had taken the chair for several years, in the form of a
VH1 personality, Cynthia Garrett, who broke the proverbial "
glass ceiling" by becoming the first African-American female late-night host. Unfortunately, Garrett only lasted a year before NBC canceled the -year-old
Later in favor of reruns of the critically acclaimed cult Canadian-produced sketch comedy series,
SCTV, itself a former NBC late-night program that aired Fridays between 1981 and 1983. That action, a temporary measure, was necessitated by the prolonged development of, and negotiations with a host of, a slated replacement show (see below). Many late-night talk shows went off the air in the days following the
September 11 attacks of 2001, while their networks aired round-the-clock news coverage. Letterman was the first to return on September 17, addressing the situation in an opening monologue. The show was not presented in its normal jovial manner, and featured
Dan Rather,
Regis Philbin, and a musical performance from
Tori Amos.
Politically Incorrect also resumed on September 17 and
immediately drew controversy due to remarks Maher and a guest (
Dinesh D'Souza) made concerning the "coward" label given to the terrorists by President
George W. Bush.
The Tonight Show returned the following night, featuring
John McCain and a performance from
Crosby, Stills, and Nash. After NBC's placeholding run of
SCTV at 1:35 a.m. came to an end after a year, the network debuted
Last Call with Carson Daly in its place in January 2002; Daly was a former
MTV VJ. Four months later, it expanded to five nights a week (from ''Later's'' four), and unlike the other shows on the air at the time, only a half-year's worth of first-run programs were recorded each season. In 2009,
Last Call was retooled with a
travelogue-like format, using interviews and performances filmed on-location rather than a traditional studio-based format.
Politically Incorrect was canceled due to low ratings in the summer of 2002, after which Maher joined
HBO and began hosting the similarly formatted weekly series
Real Time. ABC then tapped Comedy Central personality
Jimmy Kimmel to host a more traditional late-night program,
Jimmy Kimmel Live!. From its beginning in 2003 until early 2013, the show aired following
Nightline on ABC's late-night lineup. With
Nightline past its prime in audience size due to the proliferation of cable news, and ABC believing in stronger ratings potential in the timeslot,
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was moved to 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on January 8, 2013—placing it in line with its competitors, Letterman and Leno. On October 17, 2005, Comedy Central premiered
The Colbert Report, a spin-off of
The Daily Show hosted by regular cast member
Stephen Colbert. The show was structured as a satire of opinion-based
cable news programs, featuring Colbert
portraying a
narcissistic pundit reminiscent of
Fox News hosts such as
Bill O'Reilly and
Sean Hannity, among other influences.
Jake Sasseville entered the late-night arena after a self-syndication campaign got him clearance on several ABC affiliates by local general managers in 2008.
The Edge with Jake Sasseville aired after
Jimmy Kimmel Live! in some markets, reaching a total of 35 million homes, despite the network's concerns. The show went off the air in 2010. Another syndicated show that earned significant clearance in the late 2000s was
Comics Unleashed, which was produced by
Byron Allen's
Entertainment Studios, and had still been cleared by some stations (such as
WCBS-TV and other CBS
owned-and-operated stations) as late as 2013 without any new episodes having been produced.
Comics Unleashed has largely relied on Allen
buying the airtime from CBS and its stations to achieve clearance.
Scottish native
Craig Ferguson succeeded Kilborn as host of
The Late Late Show in 2005, renaming it
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
TBS entered the late-night scene in 2009 when it debuted
Lopez Tonight, hosted by comedian
George Lopez. On September 27, 2004, the 50th anniversary of
The Tonight Shows debut, NBC announced that Jay Leno would be succeeded by
Conan O'Brien, in 2009. Leno explained that he did not want to cause a repeat of the hard feelings and controversy that occurred when he was picked for the show over
David Letterman following Carson's retirement in 1992. O'Brien's final
Late Night episode was taped on February 20, 2009.
Saturday Night Live alum
Jimmy Fallon took over as host of
Late Night on March 2, 2009. The popularity of late-night shows in the United States has been cited as a key factor in Americans not getting a requisite seven to eight hours of sleep per night. Since 2015, late-night talk shows have competed for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Talk Series; prior to then, the genre competed against general variety shows for the
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Series.
2009–present at
Warner Bros. Studios in
Burbank, featuring its audience area, band, and desk ,
Samantha Bee,
Jimmy Kimmel, and
James Corden in 2018 Jay Leno hosted his final episode of
The Tonight Show on May 29, 2009, with his successor Conan O'Brien, and musician
James Taylor as his guests. O'Brien took over hosting duties on ''
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'' the following Monday, June 1, 2009. In September 2009, Leno began hosting a new
prime time talk show on NBC,
The Jay Leno Show. It aired on weeknights at 10p.m. ET/PT before late local news and
The Tonight Show, and featured sketches and elements carried over from his tenure. The program faced dismal ratings, which also led to complaints from NBC affiliates that it was impacting the viewership of their late local newscasts. On January 7, 2010, multiple media outlets reported that
The Jay Leno Show would be moved to 11:35 p.m. and ''The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien'' would be moved from 11:35 p.m. to 12:05 a.m. effective March 1, 2010, the first time in its history that the show would begin after midnight in the Eastern Time Zone. On January 12, 2010, O'Brien publicly announced in an open letter that he intended to leave NBC if it moved
The Tonight Show to any timeslot after midnight in order to accommodate
The Jay Leno Show at 11:35 p.m. ET. He felt it would damage the show's legacy, as it had always started after the late local news since it began in 1954. After several days of negotiations, O'Brien reached a settlement with NBC that allowed him to leave
The Tonight Show on January 22, 2010, ending his affiliation with NBC after 22 years. Leno began his second tenure as host of
The Tonight Show on March 1, 2010, after the
2010 Winter Olympics,
but only after major controversy. Leno's second
Tonight iteration was taped at NBC's Studio 11 in Burbank, the former home of
The Jay Leno Show, with a modified version of that show's set. After leaving NBC, O'Brien began hosting his new late night talk show,
Conan, on
TBS on November 8, 2010, after the non-compete clause in his NBC contract had lapsed. In March 2013, news broke that NBC was expected to part ways with Leno for good after his contract expired in 2014, clearing the way for Fallon (whose tenure at
Late Night had found success with a young, culturally savvy audience that was very desirable to advertisers) to take over
The Tonight Show beginning that year, which also marked the 60th anniversary of the franchise. NBC confirmed the change on April 3, 2013. Under Fallon, the show returned to New York City, where the show originated from its 1954 debut until 1972; NBC no longer owns the former
company-owned studios in Burbank where Carson and Leno's programs originated (O'Brien's
Tonight Show taped at nearby
Universal Studios). On May 13, 2013, it was announced that Fallon's former
SNL castmate
Seth Meyers would assume the duties of
Late Night once Fallon moved to
The Tonight Show.
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon debuted during NBC's coverage of the
Winter Olympics in Russia on February 17, 2014, while
Late Night with Seth Meyers debuted one week later. 2014 and 2015 saw a realignment to CBS's late night lineup: in April 2014, Craig Ferguson announced that he would leave
The Late Late Show at the end of the year. On September 8, 2014, British actor and comedian
James Corden was announced as the
new host of
The Late Late Show. His incarnation of the program was modelled more upon British chat shows such as
The Graham Norton Show, de-emphasizing the monologue and relying on multiple guests present throughout the entire show (rather than interviewed individually). Meanwhile, in May 2015, David Letterman retired from
Late Show, ending a 33-year career on late-night TV, and was succeeded the following September by Stephen Colbert—who departed from Comedy Central and
The Colbert Report to host the program. On August 6, 2015, Jon Stewart also retired from
The Daily Show (being succeeded by fellow cast member and South African comedian
Trevor Noah), joining
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as an executive producer and occasional contributor.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert achieved critical and ratings successes for its
satire of the
2016 U.S. presidential election campaign and the
presidency of
Donald Trump; following the 2018–19 television season, it was the highest-rated late-night talk show overall for the third season in a row, and narrowly beat
The Tonight Show in key demographic (18-to-49-year-old) viewership for the first time since 1994–95. On February 12, 2019, NBC announced that
Last Call with Carson Daly would conclude after its 2000th and final episode. Daly had already reduced his role on the program in 2013 due to his commitments to the
Today Show and other projects. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every American late-night talk shows were forced to impose major changes to their formats in March 2020 due to public health orders and restrictions on gatherings. They initially adopted formats produced remotely from their hosts' homes, with all guests appearing via
videoconferencing. By July 2020, late-night shows began to migrate back to studio-based productions, but with reconfigured or different studios than normal with no audience and continued use of remote interviews. By October 2021, all late-night TV shows (with the exception of
The Daily Show, which opted to continue without an audience as a stylistic choice) had full audiences return to their studio. One of the few programs initially unaffected by COVID-19 restrictions was
A Little Late, as it had already filmed the entirety of its first season in 2019. The program shifted to a home-based production for its second season in January 2021, with Singh citing both the pandemic and a creative preference against a traditional studio-based format. Singh opted not to continue
A Little Late beyond 2021, and NBC returned the time slot to its affiliates.
Conan concluded its run on June 24, 2021, with O'Brien having announced plans to produce a weekly "variety" show for
HBO Max and focus on other digital media projects. On January 17, 2023, it was announced that Craig Ferguson would make a return to late-night television with a new syndicated program from
Sony Pictures Television,
Channel Surf with Craig Ferguson; as opposed to
The Late Late Show and other late-night shows, the program was pitched as having a specific focus on television as a topic, and air in a half-hour timeslot.
Channel Surf never made it to series. James Corden hosted his final episode of
The Late Late Show on April 27, 2023, in a departure that was first announced a year prior. It was reported that CBS was reconsidering the future of the
Late Late Show franchise in favor of lower-cost formats; in November 2023, the network officially announced that it would premiere a
Taylor Tomlinson-hosted revival of
@midnight—a comedy
panel show previously aired by corporate sibling
Comedy Central from 2013 through 2017—as a replacement in 2024. Its development and premiere had been delayed due to the
Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes. CBS filled the
Late Late Show timeslot with reruns and previously unaired episodes of
Comics Unleashed. The revival, titled
@fter Midnight, premiered on January 16, 2024. Tomlinson announced her resignation in March 2025, after which CBS discontinued programming the time slot once the last episodes aired in June and sold the airtime to Byron Allen, who promptly returned the time slot to
Comics Unleashed. Leno remarked in 2025 that the current crop of hosts were more openly and consistently partisan (most of the existing hosts have openly favored
Democrats) and less
escapist than their predecessors, which had the potential to worsen
audience fragmentation ("Now you have to be content with half the audience because you have to give your opinion"); Leno, who was not averse to political humor when hosting
Tonight, generally split his jokes evenly between the two major parties. In a 2024 podcast, Jimmy Kimmel admitted that he only agreed to continue
Jimmy Kimmel Live! because he feared he had no career options if the show were to end, also noting that he anticipated that within the next ten years, the networks would decide that the format was no longer cost-effective and
cancel all of the remaining shows: "maybe there'll be one." CBS was the first network to confirm Kimmel's predictions when Colbert announced in July 2025 that
The Late Show would be cancelled in May 2026 and that it would be exiting the late-night time slot with no replacement programming; CBS stated that the late-night format was no longer profitable, even though Colbert's was the top-rated in its genre, due to high production costs, audience fragmentation and declining advertising revenue. Kimmel disputed this claim as "nonsensical" but acknowledged that late-night programming was not profitable based on advertising alone and that the genre relied on earmarks from the network, paid through its stations' affiliate fees, to cover the remainder.
Kimmel was suspended and his program pulled from the air for a portion of September 2025 following an affiliate revolt against comments Kimmel had made on the program regarding the
assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk; the suspension would eventually be lifted later that month. Allen would later make a one-year purchase of the former
Late Show timeslot for yet more
Comics Unleashed; CBS stated that its plans for the time slot beyond 2027 are undecided but that the sale to Allen would establish "instant profitability" for the slot until a decision is made. CBS executive George Cheeks noted that if the network were to resume programming late nights, it would have to do so "with a different financial model." ==List of shows in Asia==