CBS’s Stephen Colbert Hire Shakes Up Late Night — and Conservatives
But there’s another school of thought that the controversy is terrific for business at CBS. In much the same way, last century, book publishers and movie studios used to pray their latest effort would be banned in Boston, so do modern broadcasters hope their new TV show will be denounced by a right-wing talk show host. Complete stats are not available, but it’s estimated that a good battering by a right-wing chest thumper can add another 5% to the young male audience of a broadcast late-night TV show.
Colbert is already one of the youngest skewing late night shows on TV, with an audience median age of 43 years, compared to Dave’s 59, Jimmy Kimmel’s 55 at ABC, and Jimmy Fallon’s 52 at NBC. Colbert’s audience median age will immediately get much older when he migrates to CBS, but if he and Limbaugh play their cards right, Colbert could still wind up with an audience that skews younger than his 11:35 PM competitors, even though he will be the oldest of those broadcast hosts at 50.
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