The one mainstay of late-night TV that’s never changed is one host summarizing the day’s events in a 10-minute uproarious or deliberately bad monologue. Yet as much as the late-night monologue should have evolved beyond the sharp astuteness of Johnny Carson, it’s ultimately devolved. The only true master is David Letterman who manages to garner more laughs from being nonsensical within the monologue format than taking it seriously as others do.
What the mainstream network late-night arena underestimated, though, was the idea of people enjoying communion with friends on the day’s new events. No matter what you think of Fox News, their perception that a group discussion is better than one host became their most perceptive programming decision. That translated into “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld,” which falls under the comedy show masquerading as serious news and analysis.
This show’s group discussion format differentiates itself from the alternate one-host late-night comedy/news show options of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.” Plus, with the growing ratings for “Red Eye,” it’s a sign that a comical roundtable discussion on general news, entertainment, business, and everything else is the very definition of communion some viewers want.
If people like the feeling of being in a local bar or coffee shop talking with a group of half-serious and borderline crazy people about the news, why hasn’t “Red Eye” become a smash success? The reason is perhaps because of where it resides. Not many people take a chance turning on cable news in the late night hours when they think there’s nothing but a rerun of “The O’Reilly Factor.
“Red Eye” also has the disadvantage of being taped (in early evening) to air at 3:00 a.m. on the east coast, hence the latest running late night show in history. On the west coast, it’s on at midnight where it could give Leno, Letterman, Conan, and Kimmel a run for their money if the ratings continue to climb as they have in the last year. Even so, it still has a long way to go to reach even a million viewers, unless they move it back an hour or have it on at midnight in every time zone.
The show’s format has an appeal, however, that could eventually evolve into either a revamp of this show or the start of another down the road. But “Red Eye” still has the feel of a cult public access show with enough political swagger and super cynical attitude by its hosts to offend someone nightly. For better or worse, you can perhaps find a good chunk of America loving that to unwind to before bedtime.
Should “Red Eye” become the future of late-night TV, the desk and chair may have to be recycled in favor of the giant round table with a ringleader and cast of a dozen. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an oak table as started by the deliberately serious Charlie Rose.
