latenight

Comedy Central’s latenight franchise will go from a half-hour to 45 minutes each night starting Monday. The expansion is the first in the show’s 24-year history. The change comes as the show has found an increased audience and a number of high-profile bookings during the coronavirus pandemic.

Some latenight hosts have, in recent days, taken their shows to a front porch, back patio or basement. Samantha Bee lit out for the woods behind her home. The host says she is doing what she can to “keep it moving and trying to maintain some continuity” in a surreal moment. Now, with jury-rigged productions that hinge on writers and producers working from home, and a little skill with smartphone cameras and uploading and downloading video, the latenight hosts hope to keep viewers sheltering at home entertained.

With most of the TV industry shutting down production because of the COVID-19 emergency, Conan O’Brien will be making new episodes of his TBS show from his home. Conan will be shot on an iPhone and the comic will interview guests via video chat. “The quality of my work will not go down because technically that’s not possible,” O’Brien said.

Even though all the nation’s wee-hours programs are taking a production hiatus due to America’s coronavirus crisis, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, David Spade and Trevor Noah are putting out monologues, jokes and sketches that — for the most part — aren’t being seen on TV. Only Colbert’s new segments have been incorporated into CBS’s broadcast of The Late Show, where they are being grafted onto repeat segments from earlier shows.

Reruns of Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pushed back a half-hour in the coming week as ABC seeks to give a bigger platform to Nightline episodes focused on the coronavirus pandemic. ABC said Sunday that Kimmel repeats will shift to the 12:05 a.m. slot starting Tuesday through Friday as Nightline goes all-in on coverage of the latest in the coronavirus pandemic.

ViacomCBS’s Pop TV basic cable network will carry exclusive next-day encores of CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the most watched program in latenight. Starting next Tuesday, Feb, 25, the previous night’s episode of The Late Show will air on Pop at 9 a.m. ET/PT.

After learning of the plan to offer The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers to streaming customers prior to their broadcast airtimes, NBC affiliates have been in talks with the network and they say the two sides “are working toward a plan that is good for NBCU and provides affiliates the opportunity to meaningfully participate in this business.”

A politics pivot for The Tonight Show doesn’t pay off as the network swaps showrunners and observers say “let Jimmy be Jimmy.”

With the news of a three-year extension for Stephen Colbert, his CBS Late Show with Stephen Colbert continues this season where it left off a year ago — easily leading all broadcast TV latenight shows in total viewers. Through three weeks, Late Show (11:35 p.m.) is averaging 3.3 million Nielsen viewers — outpacing competitors The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (1.89 million) and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live (1.84 million).

CBS announced Thursday that Colbert has signed a new contract that will keep him as the Late Show host through at least August 2023. His current pact was set to expire next August.

NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live are running behind fall 2019 in the early going.

Katie Hockmeyer has been named executive vice president of late night programming at NBC Entertainment. She will report to NBC Entertainment co-chairmen George Cheeks and Paul Telegdy, where she will work on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live and newly launched latenight addition, A Little Late with Lilly Singh. Hockmeyer will guide programming strategy and be the network liaison for all things latenight at NBC, according to the company.

When NBC’s A Little Late With Lilly Singh debuts tonight, she doesn’t plan to dwell on the late-night staple of politics and is only the second woman of color to host a nightly show on a major network since former VH1 VJ Cynthia Garrett was in charge of NBC’s “Later” for a year — two decades ago.

An online star with 15 million subscribers dives into the white-hot center (emphasis on white) of broadcast television with A Little Late as the first openly bisexual woman of color to sit in a talk show host’s chair: “I’m very much all or nothing.”

Corden has signed a new contract that will keep him installed as host of The Late Late Show through August 2022. His current contract, signed in 2014 when he was announced as the successor to Craig Ferguson, was set to expire after the 2019-20 season.

“In the end, the candidates came together around a unifying message: Click ‘like’ and subscribe!” Stephen Colbert joked Wednesday.

For the first time, Late Show with Stephen Colbert will finish the TV season as the top latenight show in the demo; he’s on track to finish about 18,000 ahead of Fallon’s in the key 18-49 age bracket, after trailing by 72,000 last season.

James Corden is in advanced talks on a new multi-year deal with CBS that will keep him at the helm of The Late Late Show as host and executive producer. Sources said Corden’s camp has been in deal talks with CBS for some time. The previous deal that Corden inked when he came to the network from the U.K. in 2014 was set to expire at the end of the upcoming 2019-20 television season.

As latenight talk shows continue to see overall viewing declines versus a year ago, CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert maintains a strong lead over NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in total viewers, as well as a slight edge in key 18-49 viewers.

Lilly Singh, who first amassed fame as a YouTube star, has been tapped to replace Carson Daly as the host of NBC’s 1:35 a.m. talk show. The retitled A Little Late with Lilly Singh will launch in September, and as noted by NBC, will make her the only female to currently host a latenight talk show on one of the Big 4 networks.

There’s a new leader in late night — barely. CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert has taken over the No. 1 ranking among adults 18-49, sneaking past The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC. It’s the first time The Late Show has led the 18-49 demographic for a season to date since Colbert began his term as host in 2015.

It’s closing time for Last Call with Carson Daly. The NBC latenight series is coming to an end after 17 years on the air. Daly has decided to step away from the talk show in order to spend more time with his family and concentrate on his other hosting jobs at Today and The Voice.