Surveying the late night scene

Continuing from part one of my look at late night. Where does this leave everyone in the grand scheme of late night? Looking at everyone else, by network...

- At NBC, you have Leno, who I suppose will be his solid and unspectacular self. He is almost 60, so you have to think he has a decade left, at most, and that's giving him the benefit of the doubt that he will stay as relevant and "culturally hip" as he is now. Which is to say, a net zero, as opposed to someone derided for being tragically unhip. And, in light of his failure at 10 and the orchestration of Conan out of NBC, I think there is a great chance that Leno to 11:30 backfires completely on NBC.

One aspect of this whole equation that I think goes unreported is the strength of Conan at 12:30, which no doubt helped Leno maintain hit ratings during his last half hour. I actually like Jimmy Fallon at 12:30 - his show has some creative ideas, like the Wheel of Carpet Samples and his writing of "thank you" notes on Fridays. He also somehow got The Roots as his house band and uses them well, and he's also had some legitimate guests. However, he definitely doesn't have the cachet of Conan yet.

And although I don't wish any ill-will toward him, if something did suddenly have a problem with Leno, they have no clear in-house replacement. They would either 1) have to patch things up very, very nicely with Conan and pay him out the ass to come back or 2) pay someone else a ton of money to fill the void, who probably doesn't have any late night experience. Fallon simply isn't ready, so I think you might see an "established" name like Jerry Seinfeld or Steve Martin or Martin Short (to pluck some names out of the air) lured to NBC with an insane amount of money.

- At CBS, Letterman will probably be largely unchanged, although maybe more venomous toward Leno. He was the cranky old man in this whole drama, throwing stones at NBC and Leno from his perch atop the ratings at CBS. He seemed simultaneously pissed off at NBC, for doing the same thing to Conan as they did to him, and gleeful, for them wallowing in such misery.

If Leno has a problem with age and a sudden health deterioration, well, I guess CBS has the same problem with Letterman and a proper succession plan. They're in a kind of “strong” position if something catastrophic happens to him in the next couple of months, since Conan is a free agent and out on the market. But assuming that Conan does get snapped up by someone, then Craig Ferguson isn't a clear guy to step up into the 11:30 spot. To me, Ferguson follows more in the footsteps of past CBS 11:30 hosts like Tom Snyder and Craig Kilbourn - I liked both, but they have a niche appeal.

However, luckily for CBS, they have a natural promotion to make - Jon Stewart is just sitting there at Comedy Central at 11, ripe for the taking. Yes, Viacom technically no longer owns CBS, but they still have so many business dealings together that I think an ascension by Stewart after Letterman leaves is only natural. I also don't think that you'd have the bumpy issue of intellectual property if Stewart went from Comedy Central to CBS, and I think The Daily Show would transport pretty well to a major network, even if Stewart doesn't want to do a monologue. As is, it feels cramped at times with just 30 minutes, and adding another interview and/or a musical act each night would easily get you to an hour.

- At ABC, they seem pretty content with their current lineup of Nightline and Jimmy Kimmel Live. I love Jimmy Kimmel - I think he consistently does the best show, with weird, quirky bits like having his Uncle Frank and Security Guard Guillermo in skits, but his ratings have stayed pretty level after a slow start. Of the current Big Four late night hosts, I think he gets the best out of his interview segments, with a nod toward Colbert and Stewart on cable as being as his level.

Nightline is what it is: great counter programming to all of the late night yuk-yuks. Any time there is a major news event, its ratings swell. I'm sure it makes Kimmel's life more difficult, but the night as a whole is a critical success for ABC because of Nightline, and probably a commercial success as well. I don't think Kimmel or the rotating hosts of Nightline make anywhere near the salaries of Leno, Letterman and Conan. I also think there is little chance that Conan ends up at ABC, just because they'd have to essentially scrap two in-house programs that are average to above-average successes for them.

- Finally, I think Comedy Central deserves to be in this conversation, because The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are both siphoning off the younger viewers that would formerly watch Letterman and Leno. Part of this is because those two hosts are getting old, but the other aspect is the brilliance of Stewart and Colbert.

I previously mentioned that Stewart seems destined for CBS at some point, and I imagine that when that happens, Colbert moves up to 11. I'm still not sure what they used to replace Colbert at that point, though. As much as I've railed against Comedy Central for no longer doing original programming, a slew of their shows have just been bad - Carlos Mencia, The Chocolate News, that debate show with Lewis Black, etc. I think there best option is to either just have another Daily Show, with John Oliver or another correspondent as the new host, or to spin something off from The Colbert Report. People seem to respond well to that format at night, and presumably, their new show could be different enough from Stewart to still succeed.

The NBC fart logo is from here. Colbert is from here. Letterman's photo is on about 500 different sites as a stock image, and Kimmel and Affleck comes from some weird photo index site that I'm not going to link to.