Television

The Changing Face of Late Night Television

Sarah Hope
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Television is no longer just television
On the last Tuesday in April, 2014, a young buck by the name of James Thomas Fallon challenged young lass, one Emily Jean Stone, to a battle of the lips. No, it wasn’t a kissing contest. It wasn’t an eating contest, either. It was the battle royale for the creative types: the Lip Sync Battle. Late night television has always been a little quirky, drawing from both the talk show and variety show traditions in a way that marries comedy, celebrity, current events and the occasional zoo animal. With the advent of DVRs and the steady growth of available content on the tube and on the web, so-called “appointment viewing” has been shrinking. People – especially young people – don’t tune in at specific times like they used to. Plus, the late night crowd has always been a little bit older.
Source: imdb

Source: imdb

In an article about David Letterman’s recently announced retirement, Businessweek’s Justin Bachman cited statistics from Horizon Media that the “average age of a Letterman viewer jumped to 58.2 in the past year, up from 48.5 a decade ago.” So what’s a host to do to get those youths to show up to his late night party? Jimmy Fallon is a host with whom millennials can identify. Though not quite a millennial himself, Fallon embodies a youthful playfulness, and his quirky yet confident presence on screen makes him seem like a successful man who has mastered the art of living in perpetual party mode.
Source: imdb

Source: imdb

Since his debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on February 17 – and even before that, on Late Night – Fallon has demonstrated that, in fact, late night television is not a medium doomed to extinction by the television time-shifting of the masses. You just have to adapt. The lip sync battle series is just one of Fallon’s many bits that inevitably “go viral” after airing. As of this writing, five days after the Emma Stone lip sync battle was posted on YouTube, it has already reached 14 million views. Though young people may not be tuning in live, they are engaged and watching those segments where they spend most of their time: on the Internet.
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