The end is nigh for snoozefest late-night talk shows

In an interview this week, Jimmy Kimmel conceded that the end is nigh for late-night talk shows.

“I don’t know if there will be any late-night television shows on network TV in 10 years,” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host said. 

“Maybe there’ll be one but there won’t be a lot of them.”

Jimmy’s right. The culling has already commenced. 

After James Corden departed “The Late Late Show” in 2023, CBS didn’t kick off a dramatic “Late Shift”-style talent search of yesteryear — the network brass replaced it with a comedy game show called “After Midnight.” 

Nobody shed a single tear.

As much as it pains me to say it, not only is Kimmel’s crystal ball sadly spot-on — but late-night TV should call it quits. None of it is any good anymore.

And that’s not a “back in my day!,” old-man-shakes-fist-at-cloud, “these crazy kids,” criticism, either. Exactly zero young people are watching NBC and CBS at 11:30 p.m. 

Late night is now squarely aimed at 50-and-up MSNBC viewers who don’t mind skipping “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” and are content with Jimmy Fallon’s struggles to make eye contact. Viewers are probably doing the dishes.

These shows have never in history been such a tedious afterthought.

Going all the way back to when Jack Paar took over “Tonight” from Steve Allen in 1957, hosts have found unique and clever ways to both embrace tradition and boldly forge a new path. 

With time, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Craig Ferguson all ably completed that assignment. Obsessed over it even. Their off-beat personalities beamed, and inventive wackiness prevailed. 

We still talk about Carnac the Magnificent, Stupid Pet Tricks, the Masturbating Bear and Geoff the Robot sidekick.  

Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon and Seth Meyers, meanwhile, all appear to be suffering from severe senioritus — doing the bare minimum to pass Intro to Hosting.  

Letterman’s interview with Joaquin Phoenix in 2009 was a bigger viral moment than anything any of them have drummed up in years. Nobody talks about these guys — positively.

Fallon lip-syncs with celebs and makes an ass of himself at the Olympics.

Colbert’s most notable moment was rudely suggesting Price William was cheating on Kate Middleton, who revealed shortly thereafter that she actually had cancer.

Of course, there are many causes of the genre’s impending doom. 

“There’s a lot to watch, and now people can watch anything at anytime. They’ve got all these streaming services,” Kimmel said.

Correct again. Partly. 

The shows’ death has also been sped up by an over-reliance on grating political humor.

For example, starting Monday, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is going to air all week from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

Just what everybody wants.

After we read about the DNC all day at our desks, watch speeches on cable news at home and then see them recapped by network anchors, Colbert is gonna cure our apparently bottomless hunger for yet more political discourse.

What annoys me about this is not the divisiveness. (I’m no mathematician, but you can bet Trump is the butt of a lot more monologue jokes than Kamala.)

Rather it’s their misconception that in a country boasting the First Amendment, that political jabs are electric, fresh and risky. The truth is that nine times out of 10, they’re lazy and obvious.

Beyond the old-school fixed-time-slot format, that cigar-chomping, ripped-from-the-headlines reputation will be a turn off for younger viewers. 

Watch incredible millennial and Gen. Z comics such as Hannah Einbinder, Catherine Cohen and Kate Berlant. They’re not doing White House jokes. They’re far funnier than that. And their audiences do not want them.

Remember, the sole purpose of “The Daily Show,” which is still on their air, is to allow Gen X to relive their twenties.

Growing up, I watched “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” every single night. It was my first watercooler show. The next morning, all my friends in middle school would be buzzing: “Did you see Triumph the Insult Comic Dog?,” “I love the ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ lever!”.

Because of that young audience Conan built, the genre exploded onto E!, Bravo, Comedy Central and TBS.

Well, as Eric Carmen once sang, those days are gone.

Good luck finding a 13-year-old who, next Wednesday, says, “How about Colbert’s DNC interview with Nancy Pelosi.”