EXCLUSIVE: CBS is shaking up the late-night panorama by bringing again an outdated Comedy Central format to switch The Late Late Show with James Corden, ending The Late Late Show franchise after virtually three a long time, we’ve realized.
No one would remark however we hear {that a} reboot of @midnight, a sequence that ran for 600 episodes on Comedy Central between 2013 and 2017, has been chosen for the 12:30 a.m. time slot presently occupied by The Late Late Show.
It comes as Corden is placing away his late-night desk later this spring, as revealed by Deadline final yr.
We hear that Stephen Colbert is to exec produce the brand new incarnation of @midnight, which comes from comedy model Funny or Die, the corporate behind the unique sequence on Comedy Central. That would give The Late Show host/government producer one other hour of late-night that he’s concerned in (along with additionally exec producing Comedy Central sequence Tooning Out The News and Hell of a Week with Charlamagne Tha God.
Chris Hardwick, who hosted the unique sequence, shouldn’t be anticipated to have direct involvement within the reboot, we hear.
CBS President and CEO George Cheeks has been main the seek for a successor to The Late Late Show, with the community brass casting a large web for various codecs past a conventional discuss present that are also modestly priced as they aimed to trim the associated fee within the 12:30 a.m. hour from the simply north of $60M a yr it takes to make The Late Late Show to roughly $35M a yr vary for its substitute.
Cheeks himself informed Deadline final yr that the community was seeking to experiment and clean up the format when Corden leaves.
Various contenders had been thought of, with the sector whittled down till @midnight was picked.
This marks the newest synergy transfer inside Paramount Global, with CBS rebooting an outdated late-night format from a cable community on the Viacom facet of the merged firm. @midnight is more likely to attraction to a barely youthful viewers, who typically watch on-line or by clips on social media.
The unique Comedy Central present, in its first incarnation, was an Internet-themed panel recreation present the place three visitors competed in a sequence of improv video games. These included Rapid Refresh, the place contestants select a solution primarily based on an Internet meme or headline, tweet-themed Hashtag Wars and Live Challenges, the place contestants wrote solutions over the industrial break, in addition to a plethora of recurring video games.
As every episode progressed, the third place contestant was eradicated and the ultimate two contestants performed the ultimate spherical FTW (For The Win).
Expect the video games to vary, however the common format to stay the identical.
The pending 12:30 a.m. change is a blow for The Late Late Show model, which first aired on CBS in January 1995 with Tom Synder, adopted by Craig Kilborn, Craig Ferguson and Corden. @midnight’s arrival would depart NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers as the one talker within the 12:30 a.m. slot, now going head-to-head with the panel recreation present.
NBC, itself, has thought of transferring out of the ten p.m. scripted drama slot sooner or later, which might have an identical knock-on impact to each Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The transfer to have Colbert, who hosts The Late Show at 11:30 p.m., as an exec producer, harkens again to the times when David Letterman, who at that time hosted The Late Show, secured a contract that gave him and his Worldwide Pants manufacturing firm management of manufacturing the present that adopted him. Unlike that settlement, CBS is retaining possession of its late-night block, we hear.
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