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Casey Comerford on Late night controversy

Casey Comerford

Late night controversy

Claims and stances

Transcript

  1. 0:00 So one thing that's been dominating the news recently is um kind of the controversy and evolution of late night talk shows.
  2. 0:08 And I kind of wanted to just talk about how these are direct representation of the current divide um politically in the country.
  3. 0:16 And I don't want to say anything about any either side.
  4. 0:19 I'm not trying to make any points on what I believe or what other people believe, but I just want to kind of bring up to light how everything and all the controversy surrounding um these late night shows is basically a direct representation of what's going on in our country.
  5. 0:31 Um I think if you look at the numbers, um today only a quarter of Americans tune into late night shows monthly, and that's a stat um from the ratings recently.
  6. 0:44 And also um whereas they used to get 10 to 15 million viewers day um daily.
  7. 0:50 Today there's only most are struggling to even crack two million viewers.
  8. 0:54 And obviously, one thing that one reason for that is just there's more options today.
  9. 0:58 There's more streaming services.
  10. 1:00 Um whereas back then a lot of late night shows were the main source for Americans um for news, humor, um, and that was one of limited cable options.
  11. 1:09 But even with that said, um, I don't know.
  12. 1:13 I think the controversy surrounding late night shows is essentially that they're, you know, obviously political.
  13. 1:18 And the question becomes how do you draw the line between having free speech um and not pushing too much political narrative, and that's kind of what has been the question that many people are arguing over.
  14. 1:28 Um I mean stats do show that Democrats are more likely to tune in to late night shows um today, and many Republicans are arguing that the shows become too political, um, that many of the hosts are speaking out too much.
  15. 1:40 Um you've seen President Trump saying that as well.
  16. 1:43 So um I don't know.
  17. 1:46 I think it's it's a really hard line to draw because obviously the point is to be humorous.
  18. 1:54 Um that's kind of what how late night shows started, but also you know, talk about news and everything dominating news today is just what's happening politically, um, especially when it comes to the Trump administration that just has such big controversy surrounding it.
  19. 2:06 Um so I think you know it's it'll be interesting to see how the late night shows continue to evolve over the next five and ten years, because I think now more than ever you'll really see them start to change, be pressured to change, be pressured to keep doing what they're doing, um, to keep speaking their mind, or to shift away from being so political and you know start using humor of just natural um current events.
  20. 2:28 And it's hard because many current events are directly tied to what's going on with the political system uh of our country.
  21. 2:34 So I don't know.
  22. 2:35 I do think that this is just a direct representation of the current divide, especially in the party system.
  23. 2:40 Um, but especially when it I think a lot of people just want to see less um, you know, politic, you know, political statements, political sometimes people just want to tune in and I think that's what the main argument is from the Republican side is people just want to tune in, um, you know, laugh a little bit, you know, watch some skits with you know big names from Hollywood and the music industry.
  24. 3:01 Um whereas also these these you know hosts feel like they have a platform to share what they believe.
  25. 3:07 So I don't know, it's tough, and um it'll be extremely interesting to see what happens not only over the next year, but the next five, ten years.