NBC
Former The Tonight Show host Jay Leno has bashed the current crop of late night hosts for getting too political. The current late night line-up is Stephen Colbert at CBS — whose cancellation has prompted all this discourse — Jimmy Fallon on NBC, and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.
According to Jay Leno, who hosted NBC’s iconic The Tonight Show franchise from 1992 to 2014, host’s feeling the need to “give their opinion” means they “have to be content” with half an audience.
His comments in the wake of CBS, owned by Paramount, cancelling Stephen Colbert and its The Late Show franchise in general, with many suspecting the company is motivated by appeasing President Trump — an idea that was recently explored in the season 27 premiere of South Park (which, coincidentally, is also owned by Paramount).
Former The Tonight Show host Jay Leno says current late night hosts alienate audiences with political commentary
“I got hate letters saying, ‘You and your Republican friends,’ and another saying, ‘I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy,’ over the same joke. That’s how you get a whole audience. Now, you have to be content with half the audience, because you have to give your opinion,” Leno said in an interview The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
“I got hate letters saying, ‘You and your Republican friends,’ and another saying, ‘I hope you and your Democratic buddies are happy,’ over the same joke. That’s how you get a whole audience. Now, you have to be content with half the audience, because you have to give your opinion.”
Leno’s position on not making political commentary on late night television certainly seems a bit hypocritical considering he made jokes about the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton scandal for years on end in the late 1990s.
He also knows a thing or two about alienating his audience, as the way he retired and then un-retired, and screwed over Conan O’Brien in the process, put a stink on Leno that he hasn’t been able to entirely wash off since.