USA TODAY International Edition
Late shows go live with election coverage
Hosts want to focus on results on the big night
Live, from Election Night: It’s latenight comedy!
As the U.S. approaches what many consider the most consequential midterm election in memory, late-night shows are forsaking their customary early-evening tapings to comment on polling results and trends in real time.
Seth Meyers, who regularly delves into politics on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” says it makes more sense to go live at 12:35 a.m. EST, when the nation will be focused on results.
“I couldn’t imagine taping a show at 6:30 that night, like we usually do, and having anybody be interested in what had happened six hours ago, because so much will have changed,” he says.
Besides “Late Night,” other comedy shows planning live broadcasts Tuesday include CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (11:35 EST/PST) and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” (11 EST/PST).
Late-night shows have become more politically pointed in recent years, nudged by the success of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Late night’s election focus reflects current hosts’ interest in talking politics. (Politics-averse Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” is pre-empted Tuesday). The emphasis has increased with the election of President Donald Trump, and that extends to the midterm elections, Jamieson says.
“You’re not going to focus on individual candidates other than a president unless they’re nationally visible enough to make the premise of the jokes stick. Now, If you’ve got Trump out there campaigning, there’s a way to circle the Trump jokes back in,” Jamieson says. “It’s Trump in the context of the midterms.”
Late-night shows have gone live for past political events: “Late Show” and “Daily Show” did so after the 2018 State of the Union address and the 2016 presidential election, and Meyers did during the 2016 party conventions and after a presidential debate. Still, so many live shows during a midterm election is unusual.
“I hate to be the one to break it to you: Things are unusual all over,” Meyers says. “We’re in an interesting time where things like midterms are receiving so much more attention in the run-up than they usually do.”
Meyers and his writers won’t have much time to react to election results, but that’s not a bad problem.
“In simpler times your biggest fear is: How will we fill the hour? I have no doubt we’ll have plenty to talk about.”