the late late show

[Hail_Ants]

@ftg

Dave himself only occasionally plugged Ferguson. Any “stay tuned” at the end was done by an announcer (usually Alan Kalter, who just turned 72 btw).

On Monday night, Dave specifically mentioned that Corden’s show was premiering that night and gave a nice plug.

Note that for Ferguson the money went CBS -> Worldwide Pants -> Late, Late Show.

Now it’s CBS -> Late, Late Show.

CBS is throwing a lot more money at the show now. A lot. Worldwide Pants wasn’t cheaping out on The Late, Late Show. CBS just wasn’t giving them that much money to begin with. Networks hate it when they don’t control a late night talk show. (The profits can sometimes be enormous.) They doubly hate it when the production company for one show runs a second one.

But there is sometimes a big advantage: Experience. CBS has bereft of people who could do a suitable late night talk show when they hired Letterman. He could bring in a huge number of people who already knew how to do things. They brought in writers, stage crew (Biff!), producers, even cameramen.

When The Late, Late Show started, Worldwide Pants brought in some people. Not as many since it was in LA, but still, it helped. (The problem was getting a working host. Snyder in particular was a horrible choice made by Dave to assuage his feelings about taking over the old Tomorrow Show slot. Made fun of in advance on an episode of The Larry Sanders Show.)

A large part of the problem with Corden’s show (besides Corden not a good fit) is that there are too many new people who don’t have a friggin’ clue about how to run a talk show. It’s a production mess. They don’t even have someone around who knows when to say: “This bit is 3 times longer than it needs to be. Cut it down.”

I used to TiVo Ferguson and always got the last few seconds of Letterman. It seemed like he said it fairly often, but yeah, the announcer guy did do it too. I didn’t see Dave’s whole show so I missed his earlier plug for the new guy. And I assume since Worldwide Pants still owns The Late Show why don’t they still own Late Late? Is Letterman’s show going to revert back to CBS ownership once he leaves?

And has it ever been settled whether the hiring of Snyder really originally started out as the joke on Larry Sanders first, and then became real or vice versa? Either way I have no doubt that Dave hired him out of guilt (and respect). When Dave announced his retirement last year I thought it would have been awesome if he gave the job to Conan*!*

[Mahaloth]

@Hail_Ants

And I assume since Worldwide Pants still owns The Late Show why don’t they still own Late Late? Is Letterman’s show going to revert back to CBS ownership once he leaves?

Yes, Letterman’s show is only his as long as he is the host. CBS gets it when Colbert takes over. Very nice for them.

And, I guess, they had a similar deal through Craig Ferguson’s era. Now that he is gone, CBS makes and owns Late Late on their own. Again, nice for them.

[actualliberalnotoneofthose]

@ftg

1. Corden giggles at his own “jokes”. Comics laughing at their own jokes is a major turn-off for me. Giggling at all is bad. So this is really, really awful. Giggling is frequently a sign of insecurity. He is clearly over his head and knows it.

So, when is Jimmy Fallon losing his show?

ETA: I see he even had Reggie Watts on once, too!

[tenacious_j]

I think Graham Norton himself is a major reason why his multi-guest show works. He has much more of a spark than I have seen in Corden. I haven’t caught him on TLLS yet, but where I have seen him, he seems to be lacking the charm and smart-ass attitude Graham has.
With American audiences and networks being more conservative and risk-averse, even the Graham Norton show would be difficult to pull off here.