Late Night Isn’t Dying—It’s Being Murdered |
Or so say nearly a dozen late night insiders, who spoke with Laura Bradley about the political and economic headwinds facing one of TV’s most venerable genres—and most of those conversations took place before ABC yanked Jimmy Kimmel off the air, after FCC chairman Brendan Carr complained about comments Kimmel had made about the MAGA response to Charlie Kirk’s murder. “I question the sanity of anyone who does not believe this is a five-alarm fire,” former Late Show and Last Week Tonight writer Greg Iwinski told VF Wednesday night. ABC’s decision came precisely two months after CBS unceremoniously canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, making that announcement while its parent company, Paramount, waited for Carr’s FCC to approve its merger with Skydance Media. But Iwinski sees one distinct difference between the two. “They created a lot of false pretense with Stephen about money,” he says. “They didn’t bother with the pretense this time.”
Elsewhere in HWD, here’s a guide to how Kimmel got suspended—and what he actually said about Kirk; Norwegian royals take a leaf out of Meghan and Harry’s book; Kase Wickman investigates Nina Dobrev and Shaun White’s breakup; and Judd Apatow opens up his personal photo treasure trove. |
Subscribe to our Royal Watch newsletter and get an overview of the chatter from Kensington Palace and beyond.
|