I has been rough the past few days for the network late night hosts, unless you're Jimmy Kimmel.
Starting a few days ago Jay Leno and his Tonight Show learned that the show's production would be seeing some cutbacks and layoffs despite beating Kimmel and Letterman in the ratings most nights. About 20 staff members were laid off and Leno himself took a pay cut (don't cry too much, he gets paid a lot) to avoid more layoffs. Despite not understanding that the late night war isn't between 2 shows anymore, it's between 4 or 5, and that the internet allows the average TV watcher something else to do on the typical late night.
Leno went on air and during his nightly monologue laid into Comcast's, the owner of NBC, decision. Calling his show Survivor and crying about the cuts despite the ratings, I guess he knows how every other shows feels. Link.
Meanwhile on the other side of the fence over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel show is getting moved up into a more familiar late night show time slot. 11:35pm is the new starting time for Kimmel's show putting him right up against the longtime behemoths of Letterman and Leno. The change didn't seem to phase Kimmel as he made some small jokes about it before moving on.
Overall late night shows are all losing ratings and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some turn over pretty soon. I wonder if NBC is still wondering about Conan over at TBS and if that was a good decision after all.
