Great news about Colbert! Of course I will miss the Colbert Report, but at least we get it for 8 more months.
Whoosh... I think you missed my point... I think he made a deal with the Devil. He has not aged at ALL. It's freaky. Every so often, I tune in. I don't make a regular habit of it because it feels like nostalgia. But, one in the land scape says a lot. And when Chelsea Handler ends her show...
Yeah, this was the safe choice for CBS. Colbert has the experience, has been a proven ratings getter in the timeslot, is critically acclaimed, and will bring a built in audience. So why does this feel like CBS is not really trying to win the timeslot (like NBC and ABC) so much as maintain a "competitive presence"? I think a swing for the fences would have been hiring Vince Vaughn or NPH, or perhaps, Ellen. But Moonves, who has never seemed to treasure 11:30, grabs the low hanging (but very talented) fruit Who knows though, maybe he'll surpise me and bury Fallon AND Kimmel. We'll see how CBS supports Colbert once the initial splash is over.
I do wonder what this means for the post Daily Show time slot. Perhaps it is an opportunity to mix up the format and make The Daily Show a full hour. It has felt starved for time more often than not over the last few years with just 21 minutes to fill. More long-form reports, interviews that don't have to be cut down, etc. would not go unappreciated by me. If they're going to spin someone off to another show, I think Aasif Mandvi has the best chops for a desk, though perhaps the return of a Tough Crowd-styled debate/panel show to the slot could work. In any case, I look forward to seeing more of the real Colbert unleashed.
Yes because CBS is known for taking risks. The channel is a bunch of white guys fighting crime. Too bad John Oliver left for HBO, he could take over at 11:30.
I agree it would be a more powerful statement to cast somebody who isn't a white guy, but I think it's safe to say CBS isn't going to be open minded until our culture is. They are not the most risk-seeking station out there.
I imagine they likely did. I believe the viewers for these shows tend to skew older and mostly white.
True. And they are by far the most watched network. Some day, I would like those that are successful to maybe use that success to take a risk.
I agree, but why bother taking risks when doing what you are doing is working so damn well. I don't watch a single CBS show besides Craig Ferguson, but are there any non-white guys/gals on the network besides the guy from NCIS LA and a few from Criminal Intent? It's rather sad.
Wouldn't CBS have looked at the demos of Late Night and all the other shows to see exactly who watches what, and when? Of course they would, and that data would inform and influence the choice of a new host. The days of "we like this guy, so let's give him a show and see what happens" are long gone. That said, the decision to put Colbert in the seat will probably lock CBS into 3rd place for a long time to come. Nothing against Colbert, but the late night talk business is, to cop a phrase, "a game for the young." I miss Tom Snyder. "Let's fire up a colortini ... "
The three shows I watch on their prime time schedule do. Big Bang Theory- Indian character played by an Indian Actor (Raj Koothrappali/Kunal Nayyar) Elementary- Chinese-American character played by a Chinese-American actor. (Joan Watson/Lucy Lu)i. African American character played by an African American. (Jon Michael Hill/Marcus Bell) Hawaii 5-0- Out of the seven regulars, only three are white. The rest are of Asian or African ancestry. (Daniel Dae Kim/Chin Ho Kelley, Grace Park/Kona "Kono" Kalakaua, Dr. Max Bergman/Masi Oka, Lou Grover/ Chi McBride)
I have no idea. I only watch the mostly white Big Bang Theory. We stopped watching the not totally white Mike and Molly, so I think we're down to one show on CBS. WAIT, Lucy Liu is on that Sherlock thing.
Can we really become a colorblind society as long as people are obsessed with ethnicity? I don't care who is what color on the shows I watch (or in life, for that matter). A while back I read an interview where Slash (Guns N Roses, etc.) said something about being a black guy in rock n roll. I honestly had no idea that he was black. It didn't matter before, and it doesn't matter now. Another thing I read recently was with Alexander Siddig, talking about being in an Irish bar with Colm Meaney and he said he didn't think the people liked him because he was black. Really? The thought never occurred to me. I went to school with people who were all different colors and I never would have thought that there was any difference between us. I could point out several examples of people I know who you would never in a million years guess their heritage, including mine. But it's just not a big deal to me. I can't judge a person by their skin color, because I just can't. If an actor can play a part, what difference does it make if he is from America or Albania or Alberta? Am I really alone in this?
The problem isn't that there are differences between races, so much as that there are generational traditions of power and privilege that correlate highly with race, and those traditions give people advantages and disadvantages. And even if those traditions are not your fault, if you receive the benefits of those traditions, it's hard to honestly dissociate yourself from them.
The people who actually watch late night talk shows as they air skew older. Where the younger hosts attract some of the younger viewers back is through clips posted on social media the next day and after, and Colbert is actually fairly competitive in that regard on The Colbert Report, which I'm sure is a major reason why CBS has hired him. He can appeal to both older viewers watching him during the broadcast and younger viewers watching clips on social media later on or DVR'ing the episode. TCR is actually very popular with young audiences. We'll see if he can retain them with the change in format and the loss of his fake persona on Late Night.
Actually I don't really think that'll be much of an issue. There are segments on his current show that don't necessarily require him to be the conservative blowhard, like Cheating Death, Thought for Food, or Craziest Fucking Thing I've Ever Heard, and which you can see working just as well on a regular talk show. And things like his epic Daft Punk music video basically just involved Stephen being goofy and ridiculous.
That's absurd, nobody hated on Sid because he's black. It was because he's English. This whole conversation about race is silly anyway. Stephen doesn't even see race. People tell him that he's white and he believes them because he was just given a late night talk show on network television.