The rise and fall of late night TV (what really killed It)

Late night TV used to dominate culture. From The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to David Letterman’s Late Show, these shows brought in 25+ million viewers, shaped American comedy, and earned networks like NBC and CBS hundreds of millions each year. But fast forward to 2025… and the format is dying.

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In this video, we break down the rise and fall of late night TV — why CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, what went wrong with Colbert’s transition from parody to politics, and how Gen Z and YouTube killed appointment television.

We’ll cover how DVRs disrupted ad revenue, how social media and streaming crushed live TV, and why younger audiences now say: “What even is late night?”

This is a business case study of legacy media collapse, changing attention spans, the failure of political late night comedy, and the demographic shift in television viewership.

If you want to understand what happened to late night TV, how it went from 28 million viewers to being canceled, and what business owners can learn from its fall, you’re in the right place.

0:00 – Late night TV was king
1:57 – Letterman vs. Leno
5:03 – The business model cracks
7:01 – YouTube kills appointment TV
11:31 – Colbert rises, then falls
14:23 – Gen Z checks out
16:02 – Business lessons from the collapse