Late-night talk show

A late-night talk show is a subgenre of the talk show genre. It is specifically a kind of comedy-oriented talk and variety show that airs late at night. Characteristics of the genre include topical monologues in which the host makes fun of the day's news, comedy sketches, celebrity interviews, and musical performances primarily by new and current artists signed to a major record label. The late-night talk show format was popularized, though not invented, by Johnny Carson with The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on NBC. Often late-night talk shows feature a desk, behind which the host sits to interview guests. Many late night talk shows feature a house band which generally performs cover songs for the studio audience during commercial breaks and occasionally will back up a guest artist.

Late-night talk shows are a popular format in the United States, but are not as prominent in other parts of the world. Shows that loosely resemble the format air in other countries, but generally air weekly as opposed to the nightly airings of those in the United States. They also generally air in time slots considered to be prime time in the United States.

Talk show

A talk show or chat show is a television programming or radio programming genre in which one person (or group of people) discusses various topics put forth by a talk show host.

Usually, guests consist of a group of people who are learned or who have great experience in relation to whatever issue is being discussed on the show for that episode. Other times, a single guest discusses their work or area of expertise with a host or co-hosts. A call-in show takes live phone calls from callers listening at home, in their cars, etc. Sometimes, guests are already seated but are often introduced and enter from backstage. Gay Byrne, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson,Dick Cavett, Ed Sullivan, Oprah Winfrey, Kris Aquino, Ellen Degeneres, Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and Mosunmola Abudu have hosted notable talk shows; in many cases, the shows have made their hosts famous.

Subgenres

There are several major formats of talk shows. Generally, each subgenre predominates during a specific programming block during the broadcast day.

The Late Show

The Late Show may refer to:

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is an American late-night talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert, which premiered on September 8, 2015. It is the spiritual successor of The Colbert Report. Produced by Spartina Productions and CBS Television Studios, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is the second iteration of CBS's long-running Late Show franchise. Stay Human, led by bandleader Jon Batiste, serves as the program's house band.

The program is taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City; unlike predecessor series during its final decade, new episodes are produced five nights a week (as such, The Late Show and its NBC competitor The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon are the only daily late-night network talk shows that produce and air first-run episodes on Fridays), which air at 11:35 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time on Monday through Friday evenings.

Background

Prior to Colbert's assumption of hosting duties, David Letterman had been host of the Late Show for 22 years, dating to his arrival at CBS in 1993. CBS had not had a regular late-night talk show for most of its existence prior to that point, with only one attempt (the short-lived Pat Sajak Show in 1990) between 1972 and Letterman's arrival. Letterman, who joined CBS from NBC after ending his eleven-year run as host of Late Night and losing out on being Johnny Carson's successor on The Tonight Show to Jay Leno, was initially competitive with his show's bitter rival, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; Letterman's Late Show, however, slowly experienced a decline in ratings over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, dating back to an affiliation agreement between New World Communications and Fox that resulted in all nine CBS-affiliated stations it owned or recently acquired switching to Fox between September and December 1994, relegating the network to lower-rated former Fox affiliates and independent stations in many major cities.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Tyrone Colbert (/koʊlˈbɛər/, né: /ˈkoʊlbərt/; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, media critic, and television host. He currently hosts the late-night television talk show The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS.

Colbert had originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. His work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show first introduced him to a wide audience.