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of any purchase of $100 or more. That's promo code Brian. But one of the great things I have great interest in is late night television. Definitely when I was growing up, Carson was the best. And when I by the time I got to college, a Letterman was everything.
And now you have a situation where on average They if you take Kimmel, if you take Fallon and you take Colbert, they get about a two. where Carson, and I know it was a different time, Cable Vision, Cable was just emerging, was getting about seven million. And Letterman end up when he was leaving was getting about three million. And this week is the last week of the Colbert Show. And believe it or not, he was winning The ratings race.
But the show is losing millions of dollars. What has happened to late night television? A man that knows joins us now, Mark Malkoff. He's a comedian and author of Love Johnny Carson: One Obsessive Fans' Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend. And Mark, first off, thanks so much for joining us.
Congratulations on the book.
Now, first off, for you. You have a personal up-close experience in late night television. I mean, who did you work for? Brian, so I worked for David Letterman on The Late Show. It was working for Comedy Royalty, and then I had a day job where I worked for Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report when we were on Comedy Central.
So, you know, I was there actually for the very first late show, 34-year-old franchise. I was in the second row as a teenager.
So, I have a history with The Late Show.
So, you were always a Letterman fan? I was. I mean, I love Johnny Carson. I interviewed over 400 people about him. But yeah, after Carson, I think Dave probably did the show better than anyone.
And all the late night hosts worship Dave and Johnny Carson, certainly.
So the thing is, Mark, I can remember like yesterday, everybody was talking about who is going to be Carson's successor. Is he going to retire? And Bette Middler sings him off, and then Leno gets named and Letterman gets hurt. His feelings get hurt and he spins off. Bring us back to that moment.
So August 30th, 1993, 23 million people tuned into David Letterman's debut. CBS stock went up. It was, he got, he owned this show. There had never been a late night show on CBS, and Dave really set the standard for this. But there was a lot of drama.
Johnny Carson wanted it to be David Letterman. Jay Leno politic to all the NBC affiliates and got the gig. They both did pretty well for themselves. But one thing with both of them, like Johnny Carson, is that we didn't know their personal politics. That was considered a staple.
The shows that really had the most longevity and the most profitable traditionally have been the ones where we did not know the politics of the host. See, it's interesting because the first time I thought David Letterman weighed in on politics. was when John McCain was running. And he did non-stop McCain old jokes. And I thought, okay, this is not stopping.
This is continuing. It's when Jon Stewart the the Daily Show Letterman uh pointed to Jon Stewart having some political leanings that they felt he could do that. But certainly when he was on NBC for him, saw him doing that and said, Well, I guess I can let it out. That's exactly what happened. And he started putting a little of his politics.
You know, he at this point wasn't going to rehearsal anymore. Jay, he pretty much gave up that Jay was going to be number one. And he just, you know, just really let it all out. And yeah, so that's what happened with that. And between Jon Stewart and Dave Letterman, both amazing broadcasters.
That was really one of the first times in late night that that really happened with the host putting their personal opinions in politically. Right. And, you know, Carson, you say in the book that he was a Democrat? But you didn't really know it. Yes, we did not know his politics.
Now, he absolutely 100% voted for both Democrats and Republicans. Herbert Walker Bush and him were very friendly, actually. Talked on the phone. Carson was at the White House. It really just depended on the person, but he 100% believed I am doing an entertainment show.
America does not care about my politics. And why would I want to alienate half of my audience? And I remember he gave that interview with Mike Wallace, and Mike Wallace says, why don't you weigh in? And he said, why would I? Then we've lost, basically, you lost the narrative if I do that.
I lost what my objective is. He hammered everyone. I mean, Joe Biden during the plagiarism scandal, it was something like 12 jokes that Carson did on him. I mean, Nancy Reagan called up Carson twice upset with jokes about Ronald Reagan. Jimmy Carter, his mom was upset with Johnny.
Gerald Ford was upset with Carson with jokes about Ford being a stumbler.
So there is a history of presidents getting a little bit out of shape with the with jokes. But at the same time, Carson just hammered everyone. And at the end of the day, it was fun. And everybody tuned in for Carson. He didn't alienate anybody.
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So, of course, Stephen Colbert would be named to take over for David Letterman, right? And they just had this exchange. When's this exchange from, Eric? When was this from? Just recently?
Yeah, so here, you know, Letterman, obviously, very critical of the president and critical of CBS's decision to let Stephen Colbert go. Here they are. We are on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater Building, and I couldn't be happier. It's a beautiful view from up here. Would you share with the people why we are on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater?
Oh, right now.
Now, I thought maybe tonight's occasion would be a little sad, being the end of your run here, but this brings true joy to my heart. We are up here for the wanton destruction of CBS property. I know for many years I enjoyed this as a viewer. You throw things off the Ed Sullivan building. This is a true story.
When I first got this gig, one of the first things they told me before we even moved into the offices was that I would not be allowed to throw anything off of the roof of the Ed Sullivan building because evidently there was a problem with a previous tenant. Yes, I'm so excited about this.
So am I.
Well, Dave, Dave, thanks so much for creating the late show 33 years ago. It's been a pleasure having you back to the show. Oh, destroy some stuff. The pleasure is all mine. I enjoyed destroying stuff.
It's great, great fun. Thank you for everything you've done for our country. Felius Mitchell, Dave, thank you. Anything you'd like to say to the audience before we go?
Well, not necessarily to the audience, but to the folks of CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow. Good night and good luck, mother.
So, Mark, talk about that. That the letterman that we knew in the 80s, 90s, he used to do the afternoon show, happy to have a chance. To do the show following Carson to that attitude. It's definitely different. I mean, I remember Madonna went on Dave Letterman show and said the F-bomb 23 times, and it was national news.
It was just a lift, a different Dave Letterman, different times. I think it's great that Dave Letterman did go back. I do want to point out two things. One, for Stephen Colbert's late show with The Legacy, the first year he had on Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Elon Musk. It was a very different show.
We didn't know his politics. He was last in the ratings, and he did the unheard of, which was he picked a political side, and it really did turn up his ratings. The one thing I do want to also mention is Colbert's a Catholic, practicing Catholic, teaches Sunday school, knows more scripture than anybody I probably have ever met. There is a decent chance that they're going to have the Pope on for the last show. If anybody's going to get it, it's going to be him.
They've met before. They're both from spent lots of time in Chicago. And, you know, when Ricky Gervais and Bill Maher talked about religion, Stephen defended it. I mean, he would really defend Christianity and religion. I do think that that is something that.
People don't really talk about. And I think that's important for his legacy.
So, Mark, you were projecting Friday. It's got to be tomorrow, right? Don't they usually tape two shows on Thursday? Um, Thursday's going to be the last episode of the light show. Tonight we have Springsteen.
Last night was Steven Spielberg and Jon Stewart and David Byrne. CBS is not denying the Pope. Steven's wish list is Beyonce and the Pope. We don't know if it's going to happen. Jimmy Kimmel, a bunch of years ago, rather, Jimmy Fallon, almost got the Pope.
This was very under wraps. It almost happened. But I think that Colbert, if anybody, is going to have the closest chance to getting the Pope. And wouldn't that be world news if that happens? Wait, Mark, you know what it also would be?
It's a total F you to uh Donald Trump. Because this is his nemesis, and this is a guy saying, I'm not coming to America. For your 250th birthday, even though I'm an American, according to reports, I will come to Stephen Colbert's show. Who many people feel, and it's this being canceled for either money loss or because Letterman wants him out.
So, this would be that would be just like him taking on Trump again. It really would. I mean, it would just be on so many different levels. This would be the media frenzy if we have the Pope show up on a late night show, a complete unheard of thing, and they'll go down in history if that happens.
So we'll see. CPS is keeping very tight wraps, but as someone that teaches Sunday school like Stephen does and goes to church and is very open about his religion, I think that he definitely has a good chance of this happening.
So he made a statement. I'll just paraphrase it recently. He says, you know, I didn't want to be so political, but my producer told me that's what gets ratings. Do you think Stephen Colbert didn't want to be political? He also gave a statement lately saying, hey, you know what?
I'm an actor, singer. When I first got this job, I didn't know I could do it. I'm not really a talk show host. I was playing a Bill O'Reilly-like character on the Colbert report. Nobody thought it was possible to pick a political aside and be number one and survive doing a late night show.
That's the first year we didn't know his politics, and people only knew him doing this character on Comedy Central, so people didn't know who he was.
So it took him about a year to really figure out what he wanted to do with the show. And yeah, I mean, we're looking at history right now, 11 years. Can you believe that? Number one in the ratings is still being studying Carson, you're studying Letterman, you know his numbers are at 2.1 or a 2. Letterman left and he was low at 3.
Right. And then you have Greg Guttfeld, who has 35% less possible homes, and he's getting a 3-4.
So I mean he's winning in a in a bad league. The digital numbers, they do very well, the late night hosts, like Colbert and some of the others digitally, but the YouTube views just do not translate to the TV dollar.
So, yeah, I mean, it is very, very different with the metrics. I don't know with Johnny Carson. I mean, I just really, really miss having a presence like that. And just the 45 million people when Johnny Carson at the Tiny Tim wedding in 1969 was second to the moonland in the power of Carson. All the late night hosts still talk about Carson.
He's been off the air for 30 years. And my book, Love Johnny Carson, is just evident that we really do miss Carson. And it looks like, Brian, that late night is going away. I think if late night survives, we're going to see, you know, this current cast of the late show, 20 writers. I think probably we're going to probably have 10 writers less.
I think it's no ban. Seth Meyers, they got rid of his ban for a call.
So I think we're going to see a very scaled-down late night if it still exists.
So Byron Allen bought the time. And he's going to be on now. I want you to hear this. This is what he said his show is going to do. I think it's impossible.
Listen, a lot of eyes are going to be on your programming to see, well, what are the political leanings? What can they read into it? What I'm doing with Comics Unleashed. We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about anything that's topical.
We don't talk about anything. We don't do anything that's racist or sexist or anti-Semitic or homophobic. Just be funny and don't offend. I don't care who you vote for. I don't care.
I'm here to make people laugh. You're going to vote who you're going to vote for no matter what I say. It doesn't matter. It's not my business. It's not my business.
Do what you do.
So I'm here to make you laugh. Mark I don't think it's possible. to I think he got the wrong message. It's not to avoid politics. There's too much material there.
Just be an equal opportunity offender. I think that's the takeaway from what we're seeing. And see how that goes. Byron Allen is a mogul. You know, he started when he was 18 years old, making his debut on Johnny Carson.
He's a student of late night. But with Comics Unleashed, it's basically an assembly line. They do five shows in a day. They do evergreen material on purpose with no politics.
So they can rerun these shows for 10 years because they're not topical.
So that is why he is going in that direction without doing politics. I see what you're saying, but he wants these episodes to run in Affinity. And we'll see if he can pull it off. I mean, Brian, he doesn't even only have the 11:30 slot. He has the 12:30 slot.
He basically, yeah, is buying his way into late night with a two-hour block on CBS. And we'll see if it projects it's going to be profitable. Certainly, CBS is for it for at least a year.
So it's an experiment. We'll see what happens. Mark, my senior thesis in college was the history of late night television. Yeah, and I interviewed Letterman for it. Because I interned at NBC and I was able to get him and I have a quote when he said to me, I said, do you want to substitute for, do you want to be the next host if Johnny Carson retires?
And he says, no, we're a basement operation. Who would ever want to fill his shoes? That's why I was flipping out years later when Carson retires and he says, I can't believe I'm not getting it.
So clearly with me, he was being somewhat insincere, but I think having Leno get it really. Bothered him. That is a hard interview to get Dave Letterman. And, you know, whenever Johnny Carson was still in the seat, he never wanted to say it out loud that he wanted the gig because he just loved Johnny Carson so much and he meant so much to him that he just never wanted to say the words out loud. And it did end up hurting him at the end.
He didn't say at NBC, I want this in my contract. I get the tonight show. And that's what Jay took over for him. But that's so cool. You got to sit down with Dave.
I mean, he's out of the late night host, him and Carson, I think, did it best. Yeah, I looked up to him big time. He was great. Mark, too, great job. I love the topic of your book.
You're a great broadcaster, too. Mark Malkoff, a community. Comedian and author of Love Johnny Corson: One Obsessive Fans Journey to Find the Genius Behind the Legend. Mark, thanks so much. Brian, thank you.
It was really good talking to you. I appreciate it.
