Vestigial TV Limbs

I’ve watched a bunch of late night TV recently, talk shows specifically, and have come to the conclusion that, like newspapers and milkmen, they are no longer even remotely necessary. They are so redundant, I wouldn’t even guess they’ll make the jump to the WWW when we are eventually receiving all our content from that source.

For one thing, late-night TV used to be essential because it was the only programming on late at night. When I was a kid, if you were up late and wanted to watch TV, the full menu consisted of news, Carson or test-patterns. If you were lucky, there might be a “Monty Python” episode on some fuzzy UHF channel where boobs might be glimpsed, but the rule was, late-night was not really worth programming.

Except for NBC’s “Tonight Show” franchise, where you could (gasp!) get to look in on stars as they came down from Olympus and smoked, drank, and even wandered off-script from time to time. In short, “The Tonight Show” offered a very rare commodity back in the day: access to unscripted celebrities. Anything might happen, and in the live-TV era of the medium’s infancy, often did.

And for the networks, talk shows were cheap to produce. You didn’t have to pay Hollywood stars much to get them to come onto a national stage and plug their latest project. Johnny’s paycheck was the biggest overhead and compared to the advertising revenue the show generated, even Carson’s generous salary was a drop in the bucket.

Today though, people are no longer limited in their late-night viewing options. They can use that time to catch up on their favorite prime-time shows they DVR-ed while they were out. They can pop in a DVD, Blue-Ray disc, tune the satellite to any one of hundreds of channels, dial up some porn on their computer and beam it over to their TV… in short, late-night is no longer a vast programming wasteland. It’s a time to catch up on the higher-priority programming that was backburnered while actual lives were lived.

And the rise of the Internet has made celebrity-gawking easier than opening up your window to see what the weather’s like outside. The late night forum for same becomes redundant, wholly unnecessary. And the plethora of chat shows means that even if you missed Harrison Ford on Letterman, within 10 days you can catch him on every other late night venue in descending order of ratings clout.

So what does late-night TV do? For me, it still serves a purpose that suddenly occurs to me is ironic. They are perfect to run in the background when I’m making newspapers from my home office. Very little visual is happening so it doesn’t matter if I look or not. And if I miss a hilarious sight gag, all I have to do is rewind it to catch it again.

[Disclaimer: I consider Stewart and Colbert comedy shows, in spite of the third-segment guest every night.]

But mostly, it’s radio with cameras. And we still have radio. Sirius and XM have made it more popular than it’s been since my youth.

I’ve been watching Conan’s show the last couple days, and habitually skim the others when they have a guest scheduled that I like or a band I’m curious about. But other than Letterman, who remains capable of veering so wildly off-script that inspired moments still occur, whenever I find myself watching when not working, I always end up with this thought in the back of my mind: “What should I be doing with this time instead?”

And the answer always comes back the same. Turn off the TV and practice guitar. Make something. Or at least pop in a “Larry Sanders” DVD and waste my time productively.

I predict that by 2020, there won’t be talk shows as we know them now. Probably sooner. Which will be cool, because hopefully it will free genuine talents like Conan to dedicate their considerable abilities to less ephemeral creative endeavors.

When Letterman retires, the Late Night Talk Show will officially be toast. Mark my words. Remember, I’m a newspaperman, I know a dying industry when I see one.