Ken Berwitz
Are you intorah-rah articles that pretend to be neutral, but are clearly promotional innature?
Then you\’ll love Scott Collins\’ article in last Friday\’s Los Angeles Times, which attempts – pretty lamely, if you ask me – to convince us thatThe Late Show, now starring Stephen Colbert instead of David Letterman, is ahuge hit……..after exactly one month of its existence.
Want to see howhe\’s stretching things? Ok. Here is part of it:
Break out your melodica and do somehigh kicks: Stephen Colbert\’s ratings prove that “The Late Show” hostis already shaking up the late-night TV landscape.
Of course it\’s still early yet, butnumbers released Thursday for the first official week of the fall season showthat Colbert – who took over the CBS late-night talk show on Sept. 8 – has sofar helped CBS reach a larger, more youthful audience since David Lettermanretired.
The main takeaway from premiere week is that Colbert hashelped CBS get younger – always an advantage for youth-obsessed TV executives.Letterman\’s median viewer age was a pretty hoary 60. Colbert has pushed it downto 58.
That may not sound like a lot, butwait. During premiere week, Colbert scored a 0.78 among viewers aged 18 to 49,according to Nielsen. That\’s a huge 70% improvement over what Letterman did thesame week last year.
Among total viewers, Colbert hasdramatically narrowed the gap with “Tonight Show.” “LateShow” drew 3.2 million viewers vs. 3.6 million for Fallon. Last year,”Tonight” had a huge advantage of more than 1 million viewers.
One week ofratings – including the first couple of days when curiosity alone, coupled withthe fact that Colbert had a successful show on Comedy Central for years, is akey factor – somehow projects to proof that Colbert is “shaking up thelate-night TV landscape”? ONE WEEK of ratings?
This is a joke,right?
Look, it isentirely possible that Colbert will maintain or increase Letterman\’saudience…and, even without knowing the ratings, I would assume that he willappeal to a younger crowd. But right now that is speculation. Nothing but.
Cheerleading inthe guise of factual reporting is not very impressive. So you can assumethat Mr. Collins has not at all impressed me here.
One other thing: apropos of nothing related to the above article…for whatever it\’sworth, I do not find Stephen Colbert an appealing host. Way too snarkyfor my taste (sort of a Rachel Maddow with different plumbing…if notdifferent interest in a particular type of plumbing). And his”Whatever you say Stevie, we\’re WITH you 100% YAAAAAAYYYYY” audienceisn\’t helping my attitude about his show even one little bit.
