Biggest Late-Night Guests Now Bring a News Angle, Not a Movie Clip

In my opinion , the audience is not hungry for news; it is being force fed by the propaganda mill at the network.

Were it not for Colbert, Meyers and, more recently Kimmel, I would barely have the will to wake up every morning and face the day. I watch their monologues on YouTube every morning and use them as a validation that I am not the only person left on this earth who is horrified by the the conduct of Trump and his Republican toadies. I crack a smile, pray for a better day and then get up to face another dystopian day of Trumpworld. Steven, Seth and Jimmy....thanks for your help.

How Seth Meyers does such topical funny stuff every night is a wonder.

When I first read this article I was pleased that entertainment talk shows were becoming more focused on substance. But then I saw it the other, and I believe more accurate way. TV News has been becoming more about entertainment and less about the intelligent discussion of substance for many years now. I believe the American public has now merged news and entertainment into the same thing. That is why our president is really nothing more than just a reality TV star, and why so many people don’t vote on issues and substance anymore. So with news as entertainment, it makes sense that entertainment is now news, as this article

Seth Meyers definitely leads the way. His opening Closer Look benefits from his writers and his own unique style. I no longer watch Colbert because his own narcissistic style is as bad as trump's. His combination mime skit approach coupled with his pauses for the required applause for his "jokes" is juvenile. Meyers is crisp and quick while Colbert is reminiscent of Bob Hope. I'm 70 and not in his demographic but Meyers captures the spirit of this current situation and instills some hope in those of us who lived through the crooked politicians of the sixties.

I get ALL my news from the NY Times. And I watch all the political stuff on late night the next day on the network web sites. The best of both.

Just add this to the headline: "...or, why I seldom watch a late night TV anymore".

Not only are we living in a New Golden Age of Television, we’re living in a Golden Age of Late Night. Colbert, Meyers, Corden, Sam B & John Oliver are smart, funny, talented rocks of sanity and empathy in an insane moment. Fallon (held aloft by the Roots, an amazing band that gets to demonstrate maybe 5 percent of its power on TV), is a perpetual boy bro in a country where adolescence evidently can last through one’s 70s.Having inspired the robust “hate-watching” ratings reported in this article, Trump’s sad-but-true Farewell Address to the nation he half-bamboozled should be, ”Were you not entertained?”

This is how warped our country has become under Trump. We turn to late night to verify the man is crazy, stated humorously, to make us feel better and clarify our thoughts.

Are ppl actually watching any of this on *TV*??

What a nonsense article. As if people look to late night entertainers to 'give them the news.' Quite the contrary for any thinking human being. It's not that people are asking for this, as the article states, it's that the entertainment industry now feels entitled to present their version of teh 'news' which is nonsense. PS this is also how the progressives believe they can reach the citizens and sell their growing nonsense. I no longer watch late night, and most of my friends have stopped as well, including self proclaimed progressives. I fear the masses are ignorant and these show hosts know it.

When I was working I never watched late night news or talk shows. Now that I can indulge my night bird tendencies, I am a regular viewer of late night. I admit I'm addicted to Colbert's comedy. It helps to laugh at the constant awfulness of the day's news. When he's on hiatus, I miss him terribly. That said, I don't much like the "talk" section of his show unless he has a news figure on. He isn't a particularly good interviewer of the obscure "stars" of one of the thousands of tv series only a few people watch. Also, I've noticed lately that he is very self-referential, name-dropping events where he's previously encountered that person, as if to let us know how cool and connected he is. Of the others, I can tolerate Kimmel but can't stand Fallon. I watch Seth Meyers and Trevor Noah on YouTube and will stick around after Colbert to watch Corden for a few minutes. His skits, such as the intersection musicals, are hilarious. I think the perfect late night show would be a half hour of Colbert's political comedy and a half hour of Corden's skits. John Oliver is in a category all his own. He is hilarious and manages to make us swallow his serious investigative reporting with a spoonful of sugar.

". . . according to Nielsen." I'd love to see an in-depth investigation of this outfit and to reveal how it's been scamming us all for over a half-century. I'm sure it would get good ratings!

I DVR Colbert and watch the next day. Always watch the opening monologues and the political guests. The entertainers, not so much. Colbert gives me a chance to laugh at Trump's antics, and laughing is preferable to crying.

Colbert's other show was genius. I guess I'd become mediocre if given the chance at tens of millions of dollars, too. Hey, an idea! Nobody remembers who Johnny Carson was. Be different!

I watch late night TV only occasionally and almost always via streaming. My view is that late night comedians serve to mediate the ugliness of the Trump presidency, and that explains their recent popularity. Folks want a refuge from this nonsense, and comedians provide that.

Colbert's commentary is welcome, but his imitative Trump voice is decidedly not. Doesn't he realize millions of us can't stand the mans's voice? I always turn him off when he launches into an extended quote in the vulgarian voice. And I just need to say this: So many of us really miss the intellect and insight of Jon Stewart and his brilliant team of writers, too.

Yes and putting Barron’s Roundtable against Bill Maher is a Pyrrhic victory.

People like Samantha Bee and James Corden make it possible for me to not kill myself in despair, metaphorically speaking. When I watch late night TV, I know that trump and his cronies at least know that we know that they are corrupt. And I know that most of the country knows this, too. So, that's comforting. Vote blue no matter who.

Somehow, I prefer Jimmy Kimmel, but what do I know. I don't need a fake Trump voice instead of simply commenting. But, of course, Jimmy is at the far ends of the earth (LA) so that is a handicap. NYC is a short train ride from the action in DC.

Would be nice if these so called reporters were reporting the news rather than celebrities reading the news.

I can’t thank these late-night hosts enough!! They have made it possible to live through this horrific nightmare. They, like the incomparable Rachel Maddow, often help me understand the “crisis du jour” that has happened since the orange menace announced his candidacy. Humor (and impeachment) truly is the best medicine.

Hope this increased attention to politics brings voters to the polls.

I love Colbert's monologue, a Closer Look love it, and everything the Daily Show does. I watch the shows on Youtube (cannot go to bed that late) so I don't have to watch the entire shows and neither the interviews if I am not interested. But I click every time Jake Tapper is on one of the Shows. I love watching journalists in these shows cause it feels normal, they talk normal, not like on the news room, when they are always so serious. The interview Colbert did to James Comey was hilarious. When they bring politicians you see them in differently side, more relaxed and sociable. Seth Mayer had Rep. Katie Porter in his shows a couple of times and it is always a delight. It might have started with Trump but I do hope they continue bringing politics and social issues to the shows. It is nice to see celebrities but it feels empty at the end.

As always, we need to ask “who benefits?” The beneficiary of partisan politics passing as news, and partisan opinion pushers wh make a living making the news is, guess what? The News. But the impartial reporting of varied political opinions, a useful role which established journalism as indispensable to democratic decision making, is long past. And the new news establishment, in which news reporting and political opinion conflate, rules even talk shows, which used to allow us to laugh at ourselves as well as each other. We need to stop thinking the media or the Parties are on our side. They are on their own sides. That’s the game. Our republic is diminished by it. May the common god be the common will.

There will come a day when Trump is not in office, and the news cycle settles down (I pray). Then the news will not be so important in the late night shows. It is now the Trump effect. What will history write about our time?

Colbert is popular because people miss the raw honesty that Jon Stewart once brought. His show is sadly missed. It was fun, but gave a true snapshot of the daily issues. Much better than network news. I miss those days.

I watched MSNBC and I watched CNN. I watched as one host replaced the other as the hours rolled by. Neither "News" channel took the time to explain to me the situation in Syria and why everyone thought that Trump made a bad decision to pull American troops from there. But, once again, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah came to the rescue. In one minute Trevor educated me on exactly what I wanted to know. Seth Myers is also reliable in going beneath the surface so that his viewers are informed. It is a herculean vote of no confidence in our 24 hour news channels when we have to rely on late night "comedy" shows to explain the news to us. I would anything for less "Breaking News" and more explaining of the news with a good set up.

Thank you, Jon Stewart, for starting this and for staying with it. Had it not been for your continued efforts on behalf of first responders on 9/11, their heroic efforts would never have been rewarded justly, albeit too late for many. The fact that politics has finally been recognized by the media as a blood sport even more meaningful than professional sports, speaks volumes about how far we've come yet how far we've still got to go. Vote.

Is this a movement of more people wanting some more facts rather than some more rags? One can only hope. It was so frightening at first, this nightmare that hangs on, but we have survived to this point, who knows, maybe a blue Tsunami will hit Washington and clean out all our misery. One can only hope.

Seems to me that if you live in the US and it isn't on the tv, it isn't real. I see an entire country addicted to double-speak, money, looks, television and propaganda - the new normal - where everyone is always "on camera" and everything is filtered through theatrical repartee and judged by how it affects one's ego - or not. America is widely regarded as a country with a loud and violent culture that thrives on racism, egosim, and excess - hence, the tv content. The only real US culture to emerge over the years has come from the oppressed - from people who did not have access to guns, money or equality. This explains why a despot like Trump gets elected. He is living proof that the concomitant zeniths of political greed and public indifference have been reached. Why stop there? It makes for good television.

When I first read this article I was pleased that entertainment talk shows were becoming more focused on substance. But then I saw it the other, and I believe more accurate way. TV news has been becoming more about entertainment and less about the intelligent discussion of substance for many years now. I believe the American public has now merged news and entertainment into the same thing. That is why our president is really nothing more than just a reality TV star, and why so many people don’t vote on issues and substance anymore. So with news as entertainment, it makes sense that entertainment is now news, as this article discusses.

This is a trend driven by necessity, most of the hosts mentioned are so terribly flat that even with the best writers in the business they don't have the capacity to be funny outside of a narrow one note range. A reciprocal admiration segment with the host and some actor talking about their latest project often doesn't work, because a lot of those guests only interest a few fans if they aren't huge stars or have some special hook. Same goes for musicians and singers as well, and the real first rate comedians don't do a lot these shows. The low hanging fruit that is left is politics, and most hosts need an outsider to play off to make it work. The exceptions that can go it alone are the hosts that came from a stand up comedy background, they don't need help from a guest, they can amuse and inform an audience on any subject (Trevor Noah is a good example) without going the one note route and turning what is promoted as an entertainment show into a lecture with the host and guest working in lock step (mostly Colbert). My overall impression is that the reason we get spoon fed as much political content on these shows is the hosts are not at the same talent level as their predecessors who were able to take anything going on in society and find a way to both amuse and entertain their audiences, sans the sermon.

I am so thankful to Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Myers, John Oliver, and John Stewart for getting me through the madness that has been our U.S. world in these horrible years. Humor is, indeed, the best way to face fear.

The appeal of the late-night filter of current events is that it blunts the rage/disgust one feels at Trump "spending our money and using our name" in denigation of the public interest. Most people I know cannot bear to listen to the blowhard tenor and ignorant phrasing. There is so much at stake that it's hard to take a straight shot of Trump several times a day without a mixer of Colbert, Meyers or Sam Bee (not mentioned in this article...indeed, no women are).

Colbert has ruined his comedic legacy over this... Trump owns every square foot of real estate in the man’s comedic mind. What an absolute shame.

It’s interesting that people prefer to get their news anywhere but from The News. It is simultaneously a time in which celebrity influence cannot be trusted, but we accept a news figure more when they are in conversation with an admired late-night host. Maybe this paradox is just a result of viewers trying to figure out how to navigate the world when there is “something newsworthy 11 times a day” as Rob Burnett aptly put it. Perhaps, when political and social times are strange, the way we process it all can be strange too. As long as people are engaged and listening, it seems like a good thing that more outlets are participating in politics.

"Horrified" is becoming an understatement.

I guess CBS expects Trump to be in the news until 2023, what with all the court cases he will be involved is that will hit January 2021, but will there still be the daily avalanche of scandal? Colbert was struggling a lot before he found Trump.