January 6th 2023: Jimmy Fallon the former Saturday Night Live alum is a likeable guy and started off strong when he took over the venerable Tonight Show from late night legend Jay Leno. The show was averaging 11 million viewers at the time and his skits did well on You Tube such as his History Of Rap skit.
But times have changed and while viewership is more fragmented and down for all of the late night hosts since he took over the Tonight Show is drawing under 1.3 million viewers now. The show is also getting beaten in the ratings by Stephen Colbert’s CBS Late Show. For reference when Steve Colbert took over the Late Show from David Letterman there were constant rumors that he would be replaced by Late Late Show host James Corden or let go by the network.
Jimmy Fallon’s clips on You Tube which has 30 million subscribers but the issue is these views are not driving the viewers to watch the Tonight Show on NBC. The overhead required to make a nightly network late night talk show cannot be covered by viewers watching You Tube commercials.
The problem for NBC is they are kind of stuck after they signed Jimmy Fallon for another five years with a $80 million dollar contract extension about a year and a half ago. Yes they could try to buy his remaining contract out but it would be costly and who would they put in his place. So this seems unlikely unless local affiliate stations rise up to try to make the change.
The problem for NBC is there isn’t really another late show host that could take over for Jimmy Fallon now and more the needle much as far as ratings are concerned. I also don’t thing moving Seth Myers in to the Tonight Show slot right now would make much of a difference in the ratings and might even do worse.
The Tonight Show for years was blessed with talented host the Legend Johnny Carson who people would stay up for his monologue and then stick around for his interviews because he was a good interviewer. That was followed up by comedian Jay Leno who people would stay up to watch his generally good monologue then maybe stick around for his interview even though he wasn’t the greatest interviewer. I’m a big fan of Conan O Brien but he wasn’t really given a fair chance as Tonight Show host.
Jimmy Fallon is a likeable guy his monologues are okay, he is good at interviews and skits but the problem is people are not staying up to tune the Tonight Show live; But people are staying up to watch Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel’s more biting humor, Jimmy Fallon just comes off as a nice guy that you watch the occasional clip on You Tube.
Jimmy Fallon needs to be more visible where people are viewing a stand up show or documentary on Netflix for example where people then might check out the Tonight Show. This isn’t likely to happen as NBC owns the Peacock streaming service that has lower subscriber numbers.
I also think the move of the show back to the East Coast when Jimmy Fallon took over might have made business sense for NBC but hurt the Tonight Show. A show on the West Coast would give the show access to more celebrity guests but also the larger more glitzy sets on the West Coast look. Which would be much better on the smaller Rockefeller Center set that looks like a corporate boardroom that may have worked in the black and white days of Steve Allen but look dated now.
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