Late night television used to “be all the rave”, but now no one even brothers to reach for the remote. This 70-year-old genre used to be a great way to wind down and have a good laugh at the end of the day, but recently the industry has been dying.
Everyone asks the big question: why? It is because new forms of entertainment have become so popular. This includes various streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO max. Not to mention the endless videos to watch on social media platforms. With all of this new content, late-night shows have been pushed to the back of people’s minds because they are simply outdated and boring.
It also doesn’t help that now; people are so used to short, based content. With platforms like TikTok you watch a video for about 15 to 60 seconds and then move on to something new. This has really affected people’s attention spans, so watching talk shows with longer discussions and topics does not hold people’s interest anymore.
Every year there are more reasons why people continually get more disinterested in these shows. For example, one of the main reasons people loved watching late night shows was because they were able to see their favorite celebrities doing interviews and silly challenges, but now all people have to do is go to the celebrity’s social media accounts to see what they are up to.
I know that me and a lot of other young adults never even consider sitting down and watching one of these shows. When asked about indulging in a late night tv program, 9th grader Juliana Dacunha says, “No I don’t, I’m usually watching Netflix instead.” And 9th grader Byran Lopez says” Since its late night then I’m either sleeping or watching something more entertaining.”
It is clear that younger generations have little to no interest in watching these talk shows. The thing that hosts need to realize is that if they connect to young adults, then they might possibly be able save the future of their talk shows. If these shows do not adapt to the changing trends, they will never be able to stay relevant.
Yes, there are still a few people who engage with these shows, but most of them are a part of the older generation and them watching isn’t changing the fact that these shows are losing relevancy. This is because unlike young adults, the older generations usually do not share clips of what they are watching on social media. They are more likely to talk about it to their friends and family and word of mouth just doesn’t cut it anymore
After talking with multiple adults, I couldn’t find one person who still watched the whole show. Most of the answers that I received said that if they wanted to see something from the show, they would just look it up and watch it on YouTube
I think that it is time for these shows to throw in the towel and pursue something more on trend. They could see life changing results and be able to keep doing what they love just in a different way. Hopefully these host come to their senses quickly and see the opportunities in front of them.
