According to a report from Breitbart News, late-night talk show hosts are struggling to draw eyeballs which means ad revenue is in the toilet; far-left late-night has seen a 41% drop in just five years.
A new 4,500-word monster of an article from Variety tries to put the blame on streaming and social media, but there is one revealing paragraph that gives the game away.
From Variety:
As the election of President Donald Trump polarized the nation, some of late-night’s voices chose to lean into politics. The fragmentation of viewing and the trickier conversational terrain have hurt the programs, says Harrison. “There has been so much political news over the last six to eight years, and that has filtered into late night. When that becomes a large part of your program, in this environment, you are — by math — probably not appealing to half your potential audience,” he cautions. Meanwhile, as more viewers bypass linear TV, he says. “It’s difficult to discover these shows or promote them.”
…
In 2018, seven late night programs — NBC’s “Tonight” and “Late Night,” CBS’ “Late Show” and “Late Late Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” — drew more than $698 million in advertising in 2018, according to Vivvix, a tracker of ad spending. By 2022, that total came to $412.7 million — a drop of approximately 41% over five years. Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert and the others have all in recent years had to grapple not only with viewers moving to streaming, but with a coronavirus pandemic that forced their shows to embrace performances without a band and live audiences and absences due to infection.
That’s some fall.
More over at Breitbart News:
Outstanding news for Americans! The ad revenue for America’s far-left late night TV shows has collapsed 41 percent in just five years. https://t.co/WEpezJ4wng
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) April 20, 2023