When news stories fall through the cracks, we here at Colbert News Hub find them for a post we call, In The Press.
Hello hubsters, and Happy New Year! I know we’re already well into January, but, with the holidays and a busy beginning of the year, it took a little bit of extra time to put this December edition together. It’s a really good edition, though! There are some really great articles, and there’s the very special fact-checked ratings myth-busting you’ve all been waiting for. So, let’s get to it!
Stephen Colbert
- Stephen Colbert: The Man — and The Character – SJ Magazine
This first article is from a South Jersey magazine. It focuses on the Montclair Film Festival and gives us some nice additional info about the conversation with J.J. Abrams. The person quoted here and throughout the article is Tom Hall, the executive director of the Montclair Film Festival.
“In my opinion, The Colbert Report was one very long performance,” Hall says. “The new character I think is a mix of that and the real person. He’s juggling the new format and trying to figure out who he is in the middle of it, I think that’s pretty clear.”
What is undeniable is Colbert’s talent for conversation. It isn’t just that he does his research – he came prepared for the Abrams interview with a binder’s worth of notes – but that he is able to draw from an impossible wealth of knowledge on every imaginable subject.
“He has such incredible knowledge of everything,” Hall says. “Literature, politics and art – to have that well to draw from in any situation as an interviewer is amazing. And he’s a master of improv, which is all listening and following along and responding. The J.J. Abrams conversation was so interesting because Stephen was right there with him the whole time, and they were super fun together. And you can see why they get along. It was like watching two people who are in the same mental space just have a conversation with each other.”
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
There’s going to be a bunch of articles about ratings, so let’s first look at the facts first.
The only time The Late Show was #1 was during its first week, and only in overall viewers (it was already behind The Tonight Show in the 18-49 demo). Since then, though Fallon is well ahead, the show has remained pretty consistently at #2.
Lower “rankings” happened 4 weeks out of 14 in the 18-49 demo, and 3 weeks out of 14 in overall viewers. These were mainly weeks that ran either no new episodes or fewer new episodes. In the last three weeks for which stats are available (Dec 7-11; Dec 14-18; Jan 4-8), the show has been #2 in the demo and overall. But you probably didn’t hear much about that. At this point, many people probably think that the ratings are really bad, and maybe even that he is behind Seth Meyers.
To make the data more digestible, we put together a chart based on the weekly ratings provided by TV by the Numbers:
| Week |
Status |
18 – 49 Demo |
Overall |
| January 4 – 8 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| December 14 – 18 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| December 7 – 11 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| November 30 – December 4 |
REPEATS
Fallon / Kimmel = New Episodes |
#3 |
#3 |
| November 23 – 27 |
Thanksgiving
3 New Episodes Only |
#4 |
#3 |
| November 16 – 20 |
New Episodes |
#3 |
#2 |
| October 26 – 30 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| October 19 – 23 |
REPEATS
Kimmel = New Episodes |
#3 |
#3 |
| October 12 – 16 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| October 5 – 9 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| September 28 – October 2 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| September 21 – 25 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| September 14 – 18 |
New Episodes |
#2 |
#2 |
| September 7 – 11 |
4 New Episodes Only |
#2 |
#1 |
Now, with that out of the way, we can go back to what made everyone freak out.
[T]he former Comedy Central star has somehow fallen into 4th place where it matters most. In the all-important demo, he’s now being doubled up (and then some) by NBC’s Jimmy Fallon (outscored by 137 percent) and hasn’t beaten ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in over a month. But here’s where CBS brass is likely doing a double-take: During the week of November 23-27, the 11:35 PM Late Show on CBS was beaten by Seth Meyers, who happens to be on one hour later (12:35 PM) on the Peacock.
Hannity, an outspoken critic of the liberal Colbert, was more than happy to focus on the decline in popularity of “The Late Show” during his recent radio broadcast. “I knew he wasn’t going to do well. I mean, it got so bad that he actually lost to the guy that follows him for the week at Thanksgiving,” Hannity told his listeners. “You want to know why he is sinking in the ratings? Cause he’s not that funny, he’s never been that funny, Jimmy Fallon is just light years ahead of him, as is Jimmy Kimmel.”
According to Nielsen estimates for the Oct. 29-Nov. 25 ratings period, “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” averaged a 0.98 rating in adults 18-49, within 0.03 of last year (1.01) and giving the show its top two November sweeps since 2008 with Jay Leno as host. Fallon has steadily been expanding its weekly margins of victory over Colbert since the new host started on CBS in early September.
It was a tight battle for second place in November, with ABC’s “Kimmel” (0.60) neck and neck with CBS’ “Late Show” (0.58). While the former was down 18% vs. last year (0.71), the latter shot up by the same percentage (0.58 vs. 0.49). The year-over-year growth for “Late Show” was an even greater 16% in adults 18-34 (0.35 vs. 0.24 last year), as it tied with “Kimmel” for second in this category.
The race in total viewers produced a similar finish order, with Fallon (3.44 million) well ahead of the closely bunched Colbert (2.522 million) and Kimmel (2.519 million). Compared with last year, “Tonight Show” and “Late Show” were both down 5%, and “Kimmel” was off by 14% (2.519m vs. 2.938m).
Both Fallon and Kimmel are readily available on Hulu — Colbert’s show can only be found on CBS’ proprietary service, CBS All Access, for $6 a month, which includes ad breaks. Comparatively, Hulu is $8 a month with ads, $12 per month without — and Hulu includes programming from all other major networks, plus cable channels. By trying to carve their own niche, CBS is shooting themselves in the foot.
Colbert’s audience is traditionally younger and hipper — the exact audience who abandoned broadcast television for streaming long ago. And it’s foolish to think that Colbert’s fans aren’t actually watching his show — they’re just doing so in a much more convenient way for them — piracy.
Unfortunately for CBS, pirating torrents and tube sites aren’t monitored by Nielsen ratings, and pirates of Colbert’s show are more likely “superfans” who would would legally stream when given the option, but balk at paying $6 a month for one channel, for one show in particular — particularly when CBS programming has historically been available for free on the air.
Meanwhile, discussing the status of CBS All Access, the company’s stand-alone streaming service, Moonves said each subscriber is worth about $4 a month to the Eye in terms of advertising revenue. At present CBS All Access charges a $6 monthly fee for live streaming of the network and VOD access to current and library series with advertising included. The company is weighing options for offering a $10 monthly version that would be ad-free, similar to the tiered offering from Hulu. …
Moderator Brian Stelter of CNN did his best to get Moonves to divulge subscriber numbers for CBS All Access, which launched in October 2014. Moonves wouldn’t budge. “When Netflix tells us how many people are watching ‘House of Cards,’ then we’ll consider it,” he joked.
Lanzone noted that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ranks as CBS All Access’ most-streamed new series. “Colbert was huge right out of the gate,” he said.
“The late-night picture is one where everyone’s number-one competitor is the play-back of primetime series,” said David Poltrack …
CBS has a long-term strategy around “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert aimed at thwarting TV catch-up behavior – and if it draws attention away from rivals, so much the better. To keep viewers from binge-watching their favorites, CBS wants “The Late Show” to serve as a place where people can get jokes, but also commentary on the most-talked about political, cultural and social topics of the day, said Poltrack. “You want to have a show that people say, ‘I’ve got to watch Colbert tonight and see what he has to say about this,’” Poltrack said.
Colbert’s political commentary—while still incredibly smart, funny, and among the best infotainment in the country—is now squarely in the “deconstructionist” category, which you can get in many other places. And unsurprisingly, it’s tamer than it’s ever been. The new Colbert has all the humanity and passion and humor of the old Colbert, but his politics have lost a lot of his old bite, surely in part to meet the new challenge of having to cater to a wider and more diverse audience (a challenge every late-night host making a similar transition has faced). These compromises make for a far less pointed—and often less essential-feeling—Colbert. …
That famous opening monologue on “Truthiness” was a perfect absurdist recreation of the disdain among some members of the conservative elite for what one Bush aide (later identified as Karl Rove) described to the New York Times as “what we call the reality-based community.”
The new Colbert approaches the “present political struggle” much differently, making near-daily jokes about the ridiculous size of the presidential field and the physical appearances and fabricated personas of the candidates. But he’s less focused on the toxic ideology and ignorance that undergird the spectacle. …
Colbert is clearly figuring out how to package his political views in a way that expands their reach and makes them palatable to those who might not naturally appreciate them. … He already perfected the exercise of feeding eager young liberals exactly the kind of political critiques they already believed. So there’s value in a show that figures out how to smuggle his political views into mainstream American living rooms like a Colbert-shaped Trojan horse.
The new, real Colbert has inherited many of the old, fabricated Colbert’s qualities—including quickness, faux pomposity, and an interest in politics—but has traded in his shtick for sincerity.
That sincerity is apparent not just in the obvious joy with which Colbert takes to the stage each night. It’s in the time—often too much time—he gives to celebrities to explain their charitable projects. It was in his first viral segment, an emotional conversation with Vice President Joe Biden. It’s in the frequency with which he mentions his own faith as a practicing Catholic, from comedic sketches that take place in confessionals to a testy exchange with atheist Bill Maher about religion. It was in an on-camera Thanksgiving dinner, in which all assembled guests, including Gloria Estefan and French chef Daniel Boulud, declared what they were grateful for. It’s in every aspect of the show, except, surprisingly, its politics. …
Colbert is savvier about politics and all its absurdities than anyone on late night. As CBS CEO Les Moonves has said many times, Colbert’s facility with politics, especially in the midst of a presidential election, is part of his upside. But the Catch-22 of Colbert’s ability is that although our polarized politics have rarely been so ripe for comedy, political comedy has rarely been so polarizing. A hilarious and well-informed political maven has no dearth of material—and no dearth of chances to alienate vast segments of his potential audience. …
Colbert’s feints in a more politically neutral direction often tie him up in the contortions that his uber-conservative persona did, too. He is no longer playing a character, but it is when discussing politics that he seems most like the old Colbert—a man wielding his considerable intelligence to convey exactly what he means without quite saying it. Consider a segment a few weeks ago in which Colbert said, “The majority of cops are good people … but black people aren’t imagining this stuff. Both sides have a good point. As a host of a late night show, it’s my responsibility to take a side. So let me just take a moment here to say: I agree with how you feel. You know who you are. I feel strongly about that.” It is hard, given Colbert’s history, to believe the ingenuousness of such disingenuousness.
Unlike, say, Conan O’Brien, whose interviews are and were primarily exercises in his own spontaneous riffing, Colbert does not always banter with his guests. Unless the guest is someone whom he already knows, he tends to ask a question, wait for his guest to answer it, and then ask another one. For this interrogative strategy to produce novel and entertaining interviews, the questions have to be good ones and the guests have to actually answer them. And the interviews flounder when one or both of those things don’t happen.
In the months that Colbert’s Late Show has been on the air, there have been glimpses, though, of what made his Colbert Report interviews so good: his interrogative toughness, his skepticism, and his knack for unsettling guests while still charming them. …
But right now, Colbert seems visibly stuck between the smart, intellectually curious person he seems to be in real life and the idea of a “Late Night Talk Show Host,” who puts everyone on his couch and in the audience at ease—in other words, between Stephen Colbert and the new “Colbert”—who is also a character, a creation of the Network TV Machine.
- Colbert has raised the conversation in late night – The Star
Here’s another writer praising the diversity and the quality of the interviews featured on The Late Show. The part about “His is a variety show in the best sense …” is something that I’ve thought many times!
But look beyond the familiar and you’ll see the differences Colbert has brought to the format. The man who is regularly lauded as one of the most well-read, intellectually curious comedians today remains determined to elevate the discourse, even if he no longer works at it from behind the shield of satire. …
His is a variety show in the best sense, an amalgam of interests and spheres that leaves viewers feeling cerebrally nourished rather than overstuffed with the pop-culture junk food of the moment.
There have been some fantastic performances on The Tonight Show since Fallon took the reins, for sure. It also doesn’t hurt to have Questlove helping you out in the booking department. Yet, someone at The Late Show is beating them at every turn and resurrecting the show as a forum where artists like Lizzo can have a powerful platform for five to 10 minutes in a highly entertaining way. …
Colbert’s show is fighting fire with fire with guests such as George Ezra, The Internet, My Morning Jacket, Joanna Newsom and Kurt Vile among the performers in the past month, with Sleater-Kinney and Leon Bridges still to come. All of those acts you’ll find prominently placed among critics’ best albums of the year, even if they aren’t all the most mainstream guests.
Colbert started his show with the expectation that he’d bring some authenticity back to late night, and the music is delivering on that.
Late Night
- 2015: The Year in Late-Night TV – Rolling Stone
As we’ve noted many times before, late night has undergone a complete transformation over the past couple of years since Jay Leno left The Tonight Show. In this article, Rolling Stone recaps all these changes, including the beginning of Stephen’s Late Show.
Another Daily Show alum, Stephen Colbert, took over from Letterman, stepping out of character after all those years of playing a right-wing blowhard on The Colbert Report. Since he’s on one of the Big Three 11:30 franchises, his new mandate is to play it safe and aim broad, which is new for him. He’s still working on the transition — he has a habit of slipping halfway back into character, especially during interviews — but his warmth and enthusiasm make his Late Show the best of the bunch. (Colbert has improved on Letterman’s ratings, though he and Kimmel remain behind Fallon.) Obviously, Colbert comes in with a load of political baggage, as he makes the jump from cable satirist to network schmoozer; in a different political climate, it would have been easier for the host to make the transition by politely cozying up to some mainstream Republicans. Unfortunately for him, mainstream Republicans have opted to sit this election cycle out, leaving only the yahoo extremists, which is bad news for talk-show hosts everywhere.
- Critic’s Notebook: The Nostalgia of Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ Return – The Hollywood Reporter
This article rings incredibly true to me. Seeing Jon Stewart on The Daily Show again last month made me feel as sad as ever that he’s not hosting the show anymore. I miss hearing his take on things, I miss his passion, and I miss his huge heart. I just can’t wait to see what he does on HBO!
This was Stewart’s cause, Stewart’s segment and Stewart’s moment, but with Stewart bringing urgency, Noah looked even more like the child misplaced at the grown-up table.
Noah has had serious moments of his own during his brief Daily Show tenure, and he has proven competent at extinguishing his pearly whites to talk with sobriety about the latest mass shooting or terrorist attack — how horrifying that this has been a recurring thing over only two-plus months — but his youth and his chosen persona aren’t tailored for that mode. Noah never has seemed glib, which is an achievement, but putting him next to Stewart, even for 15 minutes on Monday, was a clash of gravity and levity, of battle-hardened wisdom and inexperienced uncertainty.
Monday’s episode was, to some degree, a reminder of how inopportune Stewart’s departure window was, taking him out of a 2016 election cycle that has needed him.
- Why Jon Stewart Fought So Hard For 9/11 Responders – The Huffington Post
Of course, Jon’s appearance on The Daily Show (and then on The Late Show) was an attempt to once again shame Congress into passing the Zadroga Act, which provides health care benefits to 9/11 first responders. The Act eventually passed, but it took months of intense activism by the responders themselves. If you’re interested, I recommend you go through the archive of Michael McAuliff’s coverage where you’ll find many articles and videos. It’s fascinating, but also incredibly depressing.
But the victory came at a cost. No one involved in the effort had thought too highly of Washington to begin with, but what Stewart and the responders saw and learned in the halls of Congress left them with the sense that the institution is even more deeply damaged than they had imagined. … “Every one of these people here wanted to put their arm around us and take a picture with us: ‘Hey, we were with a New York City fireman,’ or ‘Hey, we were with a New York City police officer,’ and use that whole slogan of ‘we’ll never forget,’” said Jimmy Kadnar, a former firefighter and Marine. “Well, guess what? We’re no longer able to put your arm around our shoulders because guys are crawling to get down here with bad health. And [members of Congress] pretty much turned their back on us.” …
“It looked to me like everybody we met down there was some version of the Terminator where, as they looked at you, there were calculations going on just beneath the surface of the cornea,” said Stewart, who, along with Feal and many of the others who lobbied for the bill, spoke to The Huffington Post at length. “They are mini election computers. And everything that they do, all the input that is going in, is calculating something’s effect.”
“I think in the fall, when Stephen’s show starts up, that’s when my stomach will kind of go, ‘Oh, shit. I’m not really on vacation, am I?’, ” Letterman told Rolling Stone.
But the retired host recently told the nonprofit literary journal Whitefish Review that he hasn’t “missed it the way I thought I might.”
“I’m surprised — I can remember the first day that Stephen Colbert took over — put his [new] show on the air,” says Letterman. “I thought I would have some trouble, some emotional trouble, or some feeling of displacement, but I realized, hey, that’s not my problem anymore. And I have felt much better. It’s something for younger men and women to take on.”
Regardless of whether or not they’re inspired by Stewart and The Daily Show, there’s one thing all late-night hosts have in common: They’re losing to Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show. While many of Fallon’s competitors have more directly engaged with the world outside entertainment, his Tonight Show continues to be an oasis of celebrity games, musical performances, and genre-hopping impressions. …
[I]n such a tumultuous year, with so many great shows that are more politically engaged, one has to wonder if the audience is as worn out as Stewart appeared to be before he stepped down. Insightful social commentary might make the rounds on social media and drive traffic for websites, but it offers only a temporary catharsis that is replaced by the next day’s tragedy or political faux pas, or instills in us a false sense of progress, just for watching.
And yet, there’s Stewart, appearing on both The Daily Show and The Late Show, calling for Congress to renew the Zadroga Act. Likewise, there’s Oliver, regularly racking up many millions of views, streams, and shares for treatises on noncommercial topics such as prisoner reentry. If Stewart can be reenergized so quickly, larger audience interest can be, too — even if Stewart isn’t on TV every night, and even if Colbert isn’t playing “Colbert.” If 2015 established late-night TV as a place for wider array of political conversations, then 2016, with the increased spotlight of the election, is sure give those operating after 11 pm more material to push those conversations even further.
In the Press – December 2015
Hello hubsters, and Happy New Year! I know we’re already well into January, but, with the holidays and a busy beginning of the year, it took a little bit of extra time to put this December edition together. It’s a really good edition, though! There are some really great articles, and there’s the very special fact-checked ratings myth-busting you’ve all been waiting for. So, let’s get to it!
Stephen Colbert
This first article is from a South Jersey magazine. It focuses on the Montclair Film Festival and gives us some nice additional info about the conversation with J.J. Abrams. The person quoted here and throughout the article is Tom Hall, the executive director of the Montclair Film Festival.
“In my opinion, The Colbert Report was one very long performance,” Hall says. “The new character I think is a mix of that and the real person. He’s juggling the new format and trying to figure out who he is in the middle of it, I think that’s pretty clear.”
What is undeniable is Colbert’s talent for conversation. It isn’t just that he does his research – he came prepared for the Abrams interview with a binder’s worth of notes – but that he is able to draw from an impossible wealth of knowledge on every imaginable subject.
“He has such incredible knowledge of everything,” Hall says. “Literature, politics and art – to have that well to draw from in any situation as an interviewer is amazing. And he’s a master of improv, which is all listening and following along and responding. The J.J. Abrams conversation was so interesting because Stephen was right there with him the whole time, and they were super fun together. And you can see why they get along. It was like watching two people who are in the same mental space just have a conversation with each other.”
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
There’s going to be a bunch of articles about ratings, so let’s first look at the facts first.
The only time The Late Show was #1 was during its first week, and only in overall viewers (it was already behind The Tonight Show in the 18-49 demo). Since then, though Fallon is well ahead, the show has remained pretty consistently at #2.
Lower “rankings” happened 4 weeks out of 14 in the 18-49 demo, and 3 weeks out of 14 in overall viewers. These were mainly weeks that ran either no new episodes or fewer new episodes. In the last three weeks for which stats are available (Dec 7-11; Dec 14-18; Jan 4-8), the show has been #2 in the demo and overall. But you probably didn’t hear much about that. At this point, many people probably think that the ratings are really bad, and maybe even that he is behind Seth Meyers.
To make the data more digestible, we put together a chart based on the weekly ratings provided by TV by the Numbers:
Fallon / Kimmel = New Episodes
3 New Episodes Only
Kimmel = New Episodes
Now, with that out of the way, we can go back to what made everyone freak out.
[T]he former Comedy Central star has somehow fallen into 4th place where it matters most. In the all-important demo, he’s now being doubled up (and then some) by NBC’s Jimmy Fallon (outscored by 137 percent) and hasn’t beaten ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel in over a month. But here’s where CBS brass is likely doing a double-take: During the week of November 23-27, the 11:35 PM Late Show on CBS was beaten by Seth Meyers, who happens to be on one hour later (12:35 PM) on the Peacock.
Hannity, an outspoken critic of the liberal Colbert, was more than happy to focus on the decline in popularity of “The Late Show” during his recent radio broadcast. “I knew he wasn’t going to do well. I mean, it got so bad that he actually lost to the guy that follows him for the week at Thanksgiving,” Hannity told his listeners. “You want to know why he is sinking in the ratings? Cause he’s not that funny, he’s never been that funny, Jimmy Fallon is just light years ahead of him, as is Jimmy Kimmel.”
According to Nielsen estimates for the Oct. 29-Nov. 25 ratings period, “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” averaged a 0.98 rating in adults 18-49, within 0.03 of last year (1.01) and giving the show its top two November sweeps since 2008 with Jay Leno as host. Fallon has steadily been expanding its weekly margins of victory over Colbert since the new host started on CBS in early September.
It was a tight battle for second place in November, with ABC’s “Kimmel” (0.60) neck and neck with CBS’ “Late Show” (0.58). While the former was down 18% vs. last year (0.71), the latter shot up by the same percentage (0.58 vs. 0.49). The year-over-year growth for “Late Show” was an even greater 16% in adults 18-34 (0.35 vs. 0.24 last year), as it tied with “Kimmel” for second in this category.
The race in total viewers produced a similar finish order, with Fallon (3.44 million) well ahead of the closely bunched Colbert (2.522 million) and Kimmel (2.519 million). Compared with last year, “Tonight Show” and “Late Show” were both down 5%, and “Kimmel” was off by 14% (2.519m vs. 2.938m).
Both Fallon and Kimmel are readily available on Hulu — Colbert’s show can only be found on CBS’ proprietary service, CBS All Access, for $6 a month, which includes ad breaks. Comparatively, Hulu is $8 a month with ads, $12 per month without — and Hulu includes programming from all other major networks, plus cable channels. By trying to carve their own niche, CBS is shooting themselves in the foot.
Colbert’s audience is traditionally younger and hipper — the exact audience who abandoned broadcast television for streaming long ago. And it’s foolish to think that Colbert’s fans aren’t actually watching his show — they’re just doing so in a much more convenient way for them — piracy.
Unfortunately for CBS, pirating torrents and tube sites aren’t monitored by Nielsen ratings, and pirates of Colbert’s show are more likely “superfans” who would would legally stream when given the option, but balk at paying $6 a month for one channel, for one show in particular — particularly when CBS programming has historically been available for free on the air.
Meanwhile, discussing the status of CBS All Access, the company’s stand-alone streaming service, Moonves said each subscriber is worth about $4 a month to the Eye in terms of advertising revenue. At present CBS All Access charges a $6 monthly fee for live streaming of the network and VOD access to current and library series with advertising included. The company is weighing options for offering a $10 monthly version that would be ad-free, similar to the tiered offering from Hulu. …
Moderator Brian Stelter of CNN did his best to get Moonves to divulge subscriber numbers for CBS All Access, which launched in October 2014. Moonves wouldn’t budge. “When Netflix tells us how many people are watching ‘House of Cards,’ then we’ll consider it,” he joked.
Lanzone noted that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ranks as CBS All Access’ most-streamed new series. “Colbert was huge right out of the gate,” he said.
“The late-night picture is one where everyone’s number-one competitor is the play-back of primetime series,” said David Poltrack …
CBS has a long-term strategy around “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert aimed at thwarting TV catch-up behavior – and if it draws attention away from rivals, so much the better. To keep viewers from binge-watching their favorites, CBS wants “The Late Show” to serve as a place where people can get jokes, but also commentary on the most-talked about political, cultural and social topics of the day, said Poltrack. “You want to have a show that people say, ‘I’ve got to watch Colbert tonight and see what he has to say about this,’” Poltrack said.
Colbert’s political commentary—while still incredibly smart, funny, and among the best infotainment in the country—is now squarely in the “deconstructionist” category, which you can get in many other places. And unsurprisingly, it’s tamer than it’s ever been. The new Colbert has all the humanity and passion and humor of the old Colbert, but his politics have lost a lot of his old bite, surely in part to meet the new challenge of having to cater to a wider and more diverse audience (a challenge every late-night host making a similar transition has faced). These compromises make for a far less pointed—and often less essential-feeling—Colbert. …
That famous opening monologue on “Truthiness” was a perfect absurdist recreation of the disdain among some members of the conservative elite for what one Bush aide (later identified as Karl Rove) described to the New York Times as “what we call the reality-based community.”
The new Colbert approaches the “present political struggle” much differently, making near-daily jokes about the ridiculous size of the presidential field and the physical appearances and fabricated personas of the candidates. But he’s less focused on the toxic ideology and ignorance that undergird the spectacle. …
Colbert is clearly figuring out how to package his political views in a way that expands their reach and makes them palatable to those who might not naturally appreciate them. … He already perfected the exercise of feeding eager young liberals exactly the kind of political critiques they already believed. So there’s value in a show that figures out how to smuggle his political views into mainstream American living rooms like a Colbert-shaped Trojan horse.
The new, real Colbert has inherited many of the old, fabricated Colbert’s qualities—including quickness, faux pomposity, and an interest in politics—but has traded in his shtick for sincerity.
That sincerity is apparent not just in the obvious joy with which Colbert takes to the stage each night. It’s in the time—often too much time—he gives to celebrities to explain their charitable projects. It was in his first viral segment, an emotional conversation with Vice President Joe Biden. It’s in the frequency with which he mentions his own faith as a practicing Catholic, from comedic sketches that take place in confessionals to a testy exchange with atheist Bill Maher about religion. It was in an on-camera Thanksgiving dinner, in which all assembled guests, including Gloria Estefan and French chef Daniel Boulud, declared what they were grateful for. It’s in every aspect of the show, except, surprisingly, its politics. …
Colbert is savvier about politics and all its absurdities than anyone on late night. As CBS CEO Les Moonves has said many times, Colbert’s facility with politics, especially in the midst of a presidential election, is part of his upside. But the Catch-22 of Colbert’s ability is that although our polarized politics have rarely been so ripe for comedy, political comedy has rarely been so polarizing. A hilarious and well-informed political maven has no dearth of material—and no dearth of chances to alienate vast segments of his potential audience. …
Colbert’s feints in a more politically neutral direction often tie him up in the contortions that his uber-conservative persona did, too. He is no longer playing a character, but it is when discussing politics that he seems most like the old Colbert—a man wielding his considerable intelligence to convey exactly what he means without quite saying it. Consider a segment a few weeks ago in which Colbert said, “The majority of cops are good people … but black people aren’t imagining this stuff. Both sides have a good point. As a host of a late night show, it’s my responsibility to take a side. So let me just take a moment here to say: I agree with how you feel. You know who you are. I feel strongly about that.” It is hard, given Colbert’s history, to believe the ingenuousness of such disingenuousness.
Unlike, say, Conan O’Brien, whose interviews are and were primarily exercises in his own spontaneous riffing, Colbert does not always banter with his guests. Unless the guest is someone whom he already knows, he tends to ask a question, wait for his guest to answer it, and then ask another one. For this interrogative strategy to produce novel and entertaining interviews, the questions have to be good ones and the guests have to actually answer them. And the interviews flounder when one or both of those things don’t happen.
In the months that Colbert’s Late Show has been on the air, there have been glimpses, though, of what made his Colbert Report interviews so good: his interrogative toughness, his skepticism, and his knack for unsettling guests while still charming them. …
But right now, Colbert seems visibly stuck between the smart, intellectually curious person he seems to be in real life and the idea of a “Late Night Talk Show Host,” who puts everyone on his couch and in the audience at ease—in other words, between Stephen Colbert and the new “Colbert”—who is also a character, a creation of the Network TV Machine.
Here’s another writer praising the diversity and the quality of the interviews featured on The Late Show. The part about “His is a variety show in the best sense …” is something that I’ve thought many times!
But look beyond the familiar and you’ll see the differences Colbert has brought to the format. The man who is regularly lauded as one of the most well-read, intellectually curious comedians today remains determined to elevate the discourse, even if he no longer works at it from behind the shield of satire. …
His is a variety show in the best sense, an amalgam of interests and spheres that leaves viewers feeling cerebrally nourished rather than overstuffed with the pop-culture junk food of the moment.
There have been some fantastic performances on The Tonight Show since Fallon took the reins, for sure. It also doesn’t hurt to have Questlove helping you out in the booking department. Yet, someone at The Late Show is beating them at every turn and resurrecting the show as a forum where artists like Lizzo can have a powerful platform for five to 10 minutes in a highly entertaining way. …
Colbert’s show is fighting fire with fire with guests such as George Ezra, The Internet, My Morning Jacket, Joanna Newsom and Kurt Vile among the performers in the past month, with Sleater-Kinney and Leon Bridges still to come. All of those acts you’ll find prominently placed among critics’ best albums of the year, even if they aren’t all the most mainstream guests.
Colbert started his show with the expectation that he’d bring some authenticity back to late night, and the music is delivering on that.
Late Night
As we’ve noted many times before, late night has undergone a complete transformation over the past couple of years since Jay Leno left The Tonight Show. In this article, Rolling Stone recaps all these changes, including the beginning of Stephen’s Late Show.
Another Daily Show alum, Stephen Colbert, took over from Letterman, stepping out of character after all those years of playing a right-wing blowhard on The Colbert Report. Since he’s on one of the Big Three 11:30 franchises, his new mandate is to play it safe and aim broad, which is new for him. He’s still working on the transition — he has a habit of slipping halfway back into character, especially during interviews — but his warmth and enthusiasm make his Late Show the best of the bunch. (Colbert has improved on Letterman’s ratings, though he and Kimmel remain behind Fallon.) Obviously, Colbert comes in with a load of political baggage, as he makes the jump from cable satirist to network schmoozer; in a different political climate, it would have been easier for the host to make the transition by politely cozying up to some mainstream Republicans. Unfortunately for him, mainstream Republicans have opted to sit this election cycle out, leaving only the yahoo extremists, which is bad news for talk-show hosts everywhere.
This article rings incredibly true to me. Seeing Jon Stewart on The Daily Show again last month made me feel as sad as ever that he’s not hosting the show anymore. I miss hearing his take on things, I miss his passion, and I miss his huge heart. I just can’t wait to see what he does on HBO!
This was Stewart’s cause, Stewart’s segment and Stewart’s moment, but with Stewart bringing urgency, Noah looked even more like the child misplaced at the grown-up table.
Noah has had serious moments of his own during his brief Daily Show tenure, and he has proven competent at extinguishing his pearly whites to talk with sobriety about the latest mass shooting or terrorist attack — how horrifying that this has been a recurring thing over only two-plus months — but his youth and his chosen persona aren’t tailored for that mode. Noah never has seemed glib, which is an achievement, but putting him next to Stewart, even for 15 minutes on Monday, was a clash of gravity and levity, of battle-hardened wisdom and inexperienced uncertainty.
Monday’s episode was, to some degree, a reminder of how inopportune Stewart’s departure window was, taking him out of a 2016 election cycle that has needed him.
Of course, Jon’s appearance on The Daily Show (and then on The Late Show) was an attempt to once again shame Congress into passing the Zadroga Act, which provides health care benefits to 9/11 first responders. The Act eventually passed, but it took months of intense activism by the responders themselves. If you’re interested, I recommend you go through the archive of Michael McAuliff’s coverage where you’ll find many articles and videos. It’s fascinating, but also incredibly depressing.
But the victory came at a cost. No one involved in the effort had thought too highly of Washington to begin with, but what Stewart and the responders saw and learned in the halls of Congress left them with the sense that the institution is even more deeply damaged than they had imagined. … “Every one of these people here wanted to put their arm around us and take a picture with us: ‘Hey, we were with a New York City fireman,’ or ‘Hey, we were with a New York City police officer,’ and use that whole slogan of ‘we’ll never forget,’” said Jimmy Kadnar, a former firefighter and Marine. “Well, guess what? We’re no longer able to put your arm around our shoulders because guys are crawling to get down here with bad health. And [members of Congress] pretty much turned their back on us.” …
“It looked to me like everybody we met down there was some version of the Terminator where, as they looked at you, there were calculations going on just beneath the surface of the cornea,” said Stewart, who, along with Feal and many of the others who lobbied for the bill, spoke to The Huffington Post at length. “They are mini election computers. And everything that they do, all the input that is going in, is calculating something’s effect.”
“I think in the fall, when Stephen’s show starts up, that’s when my stomach will kind of go, ‘Oh, shit. I’m not really on vacation, am I?’, ” Letterman told Rolling Stone.
But the retired host recently told the nonprofit literary journal Whitefish Review that he hasn’t “missed it the way I thought I might.”
“I’m surprised — I can remember the first day that Stephen Colbert took over — put his [new] show on the air,” says Letterman. “I thought I would have some trouble, some emotional trouble, or some feeling of displacement, but I realized, hey, that’s not my problem anymore. And I have felt much better. It’s something for younger men and women to take on.”
Regardless of whether or not they’re inspired by Stewart and The Daily Show, there’s one thing all late-night hosts have in common: They’re losing to Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show. While many of Fallon’s competitors have more directly engaged with the world outside entertainment, his Tonight Show continues to be an oasis of celebrity games, musical performances, and genre-hopping impressions. …
[I]n such a tumultuous year, with so many great shows that are more politically engaged, one has to wonder if the audience is as worn out as Stewart appeared to be before he stepped down. Insightful social commentary might make the rounds on social media and drive traffic for websites, but it offers only a temporary catharsis that is replaced by the next day’s tragedy or political faux pas, or instills in us a false sense of progress, just for watching.
And yet, there’s Stewart, appearing on both The Daily Show and The Late Show, calling for Congress to renew the Zadroga Act. Likewise, there’s Oliver, regularly racking up many millions of views, streams, and shares for treatises on noncommercial topics such as prisoner reentry. If Stewart can be reenergized so quickly, larger audience interest can be, too — even if Stewart isn’t on TV every night, and even if Colbert isn’t playing “Colbert.” If 2015 established late-night TV as a place for wider array of political conversations, then 2016, with the increased spotlight of the election, is sure give those operating after 11 pm more material to push those conversations even further.