![]() ![]() Now the host is about to take that power out for a high-profile spin. “But there’s no question that Colbert has found his voice.” ![]() “I think in the long run, Jimmy Fallon is going to do just fine,” says Rick Ludwin, the executive who for years supervised NBC’s late-night programs and their hosts, including Johnny Carson, Letterman and Conan O’Brien. NBC’s “Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” continues to win the most viewers in the demographic advertisers covet, people between 18 and 49, but Colbert now has the biggest total audience - putting CBS in a position in late night it has not enjoyed in decades. After a rockier-than-expected start on CBS upon taking over the show from David Letterman, Colbert has seen his viewership surge. Staying right on the latest headlines in a nation addicted to them has lent Colbert and his “Late Show” new momentum, and the host says delivering jokes related to whatever the nation is talking about has become his modus operandi. “We didn’t even get to see the thing we were writing about.” He can’t resist throwing in a punch line: “I almost pulled a hamstring last night because we went from zero to sixty so fast.” “Last night was probably the fastest we wrote a monologue ever,” Colbert says. That instant response to headlines has helped the host skyrocket to the top of the late night ratings charts, but on a recent visit to his office, he admits it’s also left him feeling “hung over from the news.” Just the day before, he and his staff had to whip up an entirely new opening after President Trump let loose during a press conference, saying both sides were to blame for the August clash between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville, Va. “We’ll have more on this tomorrow, when they scramble to cover the whole thing up.” My pulse is racing,” Colbert told the crowd. “There’s never a point when the show is so locked that we won’t change it - literally minutes before I go onstage.” In May, when FBI director James Comey was fired, for example, Colbert had already delivered his monologue, only to be told of the breaking news after he was done, recalls Chris Licht, the late-night show’s executive producer. “Many’s the night when we have to throw the whole thing out after rehearsal,” explains Colbert. No matter how much work goes into the jokes crafted for the monologue and other comedy bits for CBS’ “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” the staff knows much of it could be scrapped just before its host tapes the program before the audience. But for a group of staffers clustered in a narrow office building attached to the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, the fear is his antics may trigger another type of fallout: a “live show situation.” President Trump’s itchy trigger finger has many Americans worried.
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