The narrative about late-night TV is that it now (mostly) belongs to the ages—or the aged, depending on how apocalyptic your taste in narratives.
So here’s a counter-narrative: 2024 has been a busy, newsy, consequential year for late night, with developments both negative and positive, ominous and promising, politically potent and politically threatening.
If the medium is now divided neatly in public consciousness and media coverage between linear (doom) and digital (boom), late-night shows continue to occupy at least a steady and frequently compelling presence in both camps.
And, most notably, they keep making noise in the culture.
Is the noise growing fainter? This year brought some evidence for that case. Seth Meyers lost his band, another signal that the financial foundation for late night is eroding. Jimmy Fallon lost an entire night of the week, when NBC squeezed back the Tonight Show franchise, the titan of the genre, eliminating original episodes on Fridays
That decision only matched what other late-night shows have been doing for years, or decades; but any change in a 70-year-old’s vigor is generally worrisome.
Still, both those NBC shows celebrated 10 years on the air. The network’s special in May, devoted to highlights of Fallon’s tenure, was a well-rated hit, and both NBC late-night hosts have long-term deals in place to continue.
The act of continuing is generally not cause for celebration, but the art of the comeback often is, and the biggest breaking news in late night in 2024 was the return of an icon, Jon Stewart, to The Daily Show.
He reclaimed his old parking space behind the show’s faux news anchor desk in February, in time to dive into the presidential election, which historically pumps up attention to late night.
Stewart pumped up much more, elevating interest in one of late-night TV’s few remaining outposts on cable, even though he provided only 25% of the show’s jokes as a Monday-only host.
And his decision to continue in that role through 2025, past his original plan of just a one-year cameo, at a minimum serves as paddles to keep shocking life into The Daily Show, even as several of the show’s regular “correspondents” demonstrate growing facility with hosting when their turns turn up.
There was even a new show in late night. CBS could have bagged on the hour following Stephen Colbert’s Late Show after James Corden departed from the Late Late Show, but opted instead to try a new-ish format, the joke-centric game competition After Midnight.
Following the standard late-night formula, the show took time to establish itself—and to figure out what the heck it is. But it had a promising host in Taylor Tomlinson and once it started playing to that strength—as in, giving her a nightly monologue—it found sound footing, and a renewal.
And interest in new entries popped up elsewhere, John Mulaney, among the hottest stand-ups currently working, stepped out in a raw but occasionally riveting Netflix week-long series, Everybody’s In LA. It looked like a late-night show and quacked like a late-night show. Mulaney is set to do some other kind of show in the “talk” area code for Netflix in 2025. Quacking seems likely.
Even sports wants in. ESPN is about to launch its own late-night entertainment series, with a host who really respects the genre, though he is mostly experienced in pushing large people around.
Jason Kelce, the ex-Eagles center, promises that his new late-night show, starting in January, will have the traditional elements, including a monologue. Can a sports star be funny? Magic Johnson: not so much in his unsuccessful late-night try. But he was accomplished in passing; Kelce’s experience is in snapping, which is closer to comedy.
The best thing ESPN can do for Kelce is keep finding ways to slot his show behind a big sports event, preferably a football game. The link between sports and late-night has grown closer, because they are among the remaining television attractions that do live performances in front of crowds of people. (The crowds being much larger for football, but still.)
Following live events paid off several times for late night. When specials were scheduled after debates, convention speeches, and even election night itself, ratings elevated—in a word, hugely.
Of course, no late-night show gets as much elevation from being alive and kicking than Saturday Night Live, which raced towards its 50th anniversary on a magic carpet of attention and nostalgia, decorating its season with cameos from previous stars, and proving over again that putting a show on live was the best decision the show’s creator and impresario, Lorne Michaels, ever made.
But there’s more. The Oscars got a ratings boost, a pair of emmy nods, and a wave of great reviews thanks to the fourth hosting turn by ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel’s splashy work, attracting a live review (unflattering) from a presidential candidate, and the massive laugh he ignited with his devastating rejoinder, not only notched another success for a late-night host in that rambling, hard-to-wrangle job, it should also have forever put to rest the once fashionable notion that awards shows are better with no host at all. Hire a great late-night host, get a great hosting job.
The “Academy” sure seemed to get the message. They reached into late-night’s hall of fame to bring on another icon, Conan O’Brien, as next year’s host, which makes the show must-see even if the nominated movies are, as usual, mostly didn’t-see.
A lot of that is the good news for late night. And although most hosts would be loathe to admit it, maybe it’s also good news that the subject of likely more jokes than other public figure in history is returning for another four-year residency in America’s greatest theater, the White House.
Donald Trump’s penchant for constant outrageousness and ridiculousness is the definition of blessing and curse for nightly comedy. The hosts and writers will go bravely back into action in January, aware that they will almost certainly be tweaking the ogre who can stomp on their villages.
Like others who have been threatened with suits and slurs and who knows what other means of attempted shutdowns, late-night hosts will be facing yet another crisis. The existential kind.
But they’re getting used to that.