“Tonight” host Jimmy Fallon is hoping to attain new viewers this fall with some assist from TV’s top-rated program.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will air Sept. 21 following the Chiefs’ contest with the New York Giants. Episodes may even air after the Oct. 26 recreation between the Inexperienced Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, the Nov. 16 recreation with the Detroit Lions and Tremendous Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, and the Chiefs’ Dec. 7 assembly with the Houston Texans.
This system will goal to e-book high-profile friends for the Sunday airings. Matthew McConaughey and Eric Church are scheduled to seem on Sept. 21.
When Fallon’s program aired an episode after “Sunday Night Football” final season, it scored its greatest rankings of the 12 months. NBC has dedicated to extra at a time when late-night TV is in disaster.
Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift on the AFC Championship recreation on Jan. 28, 2024.
(Julio Cortez / AP)
CBS’ resolution to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” due to monetary losses highlighted how one in every of TV’s most enduring genres is struggling. Declining rankings and revenues — as a result of erosion of appointment TV viewing within the streaming age — have damage all late-night reveals, together with “Tonight.”
The lame-duck standing and eventual departure of Colbert from late night time in Could presents a possibility for “Tonight” to achieve viewers who’re nonetheless within the behavior of watching the desk-and-sofa fests at 11:35 p.m.
“We’re hoping to pick up some of those eyeballs for our show,” stated Katie Hockmeyer, government vice chairman of late-night programming for NBC.
The rankings decline in community prime time has dragged late night time down with it, depriving the suited hosts of their as soon as highly effective lead-ins.
“Sunday Night Football” has defied that development, averaging 21.6 million viewers on TV and streaming final season, in response to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics information, its greatest efficiency since 2015. “SNF” has been the most-watched prime-time collection for 14 straight years.
Whereas “Tonight” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” face the identical enterprise challenges as “Late Show,” NBC says it stays dedicated to its applications, which have a wealthy historical past. Each Fallon and Meyers are signed by means of 2028.
“Tonight” goes again to the early days of tv, and Fallon performs on the identical ground of NBC’s Rockefeller Heart headquarters as Johnny Carson did when he hosted this system out of New York. David Letterman expanded the viewers for comedy within the time interval when “Late Night” debuted within the 12:30 a.m. slot in 1982.
Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, left, with “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson in 1979.
(Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)
Hockmeyer declined to debate the monetary state of “Tonight,” however famous that NBC’s late-night programming has worth past the rankings. They supply a platform to tout properties all through NBCUniversal, comparable to movies from Common Photos, programming on NBC and the streaming service Peacock, and protection of main sporting occasions such because the Olympics.
“I think we have to remember that these shows are amazing ecosystems that help promote things within the company,” Hockmeyer stated.
NBC’s associates pay the community for the applications. They’re considered when the community negotiates carriage charges from satellite tv for pc and cable programs that carry its stations.
The community’s gross sales division additionally makes use of the applications to promote product placements by which manufacturers are embedded into comedy bits.
