“I bid you a very heartfelt good night.”
Those were Johnny Carson’s final words on “The Tonight Show” on May 22, 1992. Nearly 50 million people tuned in to watch him say goodbye after 30 years behind the desk.
That number is hard to imagine today. When I read about that moment, I realized how far late-night has come since then. I am 18, and I have never stayed up to watch a whole late-night show live. I have watched highlights on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, but I have never sat through the entire thing. That says a lot about where late-night stands now.
Carson’s farewell marked the end of an era and the beginning of a battle that defined late-night television in the 1990s.
In the wake of Carson’s departure, NBC had a tough choice to make. Give “The Tonight Show” to Jay Leno, Carson’s guest host since 1986, or David Letterman, who had built his case with “The Late Night Show” after Carson. NBC chose Leno, fearing he might leave the network otherwise.
Letterman, furious, left the network to launch “The Late Show” on CBS in 1993. His debut drew 23 million viewers, and for a while, he was beating Leno in ratings. But Leno eventually pulled ahead, thanks in part to big moments like Hugh Grant’s infamous 1995 interview after his arrest.
The rivalry lasted for decades and became the subject of Bill Carter’s book “The Late Shift,” which captured the backroom deals and egos that defined the first “late-night war.”
After that, these hosts gave late-night some fresh energy and expanded the genre’s landscape. Craig Ferguson brought a quirky style to CBS’s “Late Late Show” from 2005 to 2014. Jimmy Kimmel carved out a space on ABC starting in 2003, while Conan O’Brien kept NBC’s “Late Night” weird and unpredictable.
The second-late night war came in 2010. NBC and Jay Leno had promised Conan O’Brien “The Tonight Show” years earlier in 2004, and he finally took over in 2009. However, NBC tried to keep Leno in prime time at 10 p.m. with his own show. That experiment hurt local news and “The Tonight Show” ratings, leading to pushback from affiliates.
NBC, panicking, proposed moving Leno back to 11:35 p.m. and sliding “The Tonight Show” with Conan to 12:05 a.m.
Conan refused, writing his famous “People of Earth” letter, and walked away with a $45 million settlement. Leno returned to “The Tonight Show” in March 2010, and Conan left for TBS to start his own show, which lasted until 2021. The fight was ugly, public and embarrassing for NBC. It also showed how much the ground had shifted: even during the drama, ratings were nowhere near Carson’s era.
Fast forward to today, and the numbers tell the story. In Carson’s day, “The Tonight Show” could pull in 15 million viewers a night. Now, Stephen Colbert leads the field with 2.42 million viewers, followed by Jimmy Kimmel at 1.77 million and Jimmy Fallon at 1.19 million. In the key 18–49 viewer age demographic, Kimmel beats Colbert with 220,000 viewers. That is an 80 percent drop from a decade ago.
Meanwhile, Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” averages 3.29 million viewers, making Greg Gutfeld the most-watched late-night host in America, even though his show airs at 10 p.m. on cable.
The money has followed the audience out the door. In 2018, advertisers spent $439 million on late-night TV across the Big Three networks. By 2024, that number had fallen to about $220 million. Networks can not ignore that math.
James Corden left “The Late Late Show” in 2023 amid reports that the show cost $60–65 million a year to produce, yet generated less than $45 million in revenue, resulting in a CBS annual loss of approximately $15 million.
CBS replaced it with “After Midnight,” a cheaper panel game show, but even that ended in 2025. The network has now abandoned the 12:37 a.m. slot entirely, ending a tradition that began in 1995.
Paramount has canceled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” despite it being the top-rated show, and it will end in May 2026. CBS says the decision is financial, not performance-related, with reports suggesting the show was losing $40 million a year.
Then there is Jimmy Kimmel. His show averaged 1.7 million viewers this year, but controversy hit in September when ABC pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” off the air after comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The suspension sparked Federal Communications Communications threats and political backlash. When Kimmel returned, the episode drew 6.26 million viewers, his biggest audience in a decade. However, that spike only shows how rare those numbers have become.
As someone who grew up on social media, I get it. Why stay up until midnight when the best moments are already on YouTube by morning?
Colbert’s monologues rack up millions of views online, far more than his live audience, while Jimmy Fallon’s games and sketches trend on TikTok.
The problem is that digital views do not generate the same revenue as TV ads. Networks built these shows for a world where people watched live. That world is gone.
Late-night TV is not completely dead, but it has undergone significant changes. The audience is now fragmented, while show budgets are getting tighter, and it is no longer a nightly ritual for the young adult audience of Generation Z. The format still produces moments that spread across social media. But the late-night shows that once shaped American pop culture are now a declining business.
As a fan of comedy and media, I hope late-night TV finds a way to adapt. However, the truth is that the nightly ritual Carson signed off from in 1992 is not returning. The audience has moved on, and so have I.
