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Wedged between YouTube celebrities, Vine stars and an
Internet full of cat videos, the hosts of late night talk shows
are putting a larger focus on becoming online sensations,
creating meme-friendly content to draw an audience well beyond
their tiny midnight viewership. (Graphic: http://reut.rs/1PQdWoB)
As entertainers compete for eyeballs in the cut-throat world of
television ratings, having a strong social media presence can
help lure advertisers not just to broadcast TV, but a broader
range of online platforms.
"It's the holy grail, to be able to sell cross platform
advertising," said Seth Shapiro, digital media consultant and a
governor at the Television Academy, bestowers of the Emmy
awards.
NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" currently leads
the social media race over eight late night rivals - NBC's "Late
Night With Seth Meyers," ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," TBS'
"Conan," CBS' "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" and "The Late
Late Show with James Corden," and Comedy Central's "@midnight,"
"The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" and "The Nightly Show with
Larry Wilmore."
Fallon, whose "Tonight Show" team just won an Interactive Emmy
award for social media engagement, boasts 6.7 million Facebook
fans, 8.3 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 30 million
Twitter followers.
Those numbers dwarf Fallon's regular TV audience, where he is
also ratings leader with about 3.5 million nightly viewers.
In the month of September, 30 million people on Facebook engaged
in content and discussion around the nine late night hosts, with
Fallon drawing 58 percent of that chatter, Facebook said.
On Twitter, Fallon garnered 963,000 mentions over a 30-day
period, outpacing second placed Kimmel's 242,000 mentions.
SMALL TUBE TO YOUTUBE
British entertainer Corden, 37, was little known in the U.S.
before taking over "The Late Late Show" in March. It's his
digital content that broadens his reach beyond his relatively
small TV viewership of about 1.3 million, and also to
international audiences, said executive producer Ben Winston.
"It doesn't matter what your time slot is or what your lead-in
is, the good content will survive," Winston told Reuters.
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Corden's most popular online clips are his "Carpool Karaoke"
sketches, where he and guests such as Carey sing along to their hit
songs while he drives to work. Justin Bieber's appearance in May
drew 35 million YouTube views.
Fallon and his "Tonight Show" team have "charted out a best practice
for doing late night on social media," said Shapiro.
The comedian's penchant for parodies and musical numbers are viral
bait - "Harry Potter" star Radcliffe rapping Blackalicious'
"Alphabet Aerobics" has 48 million YouTube views. Other popular
segments include "Lip Sync Battles."
Kimmel has numerous online favorites including his faux feud with
actor Matt Damon and his popular "Mean Tweets," where celebrities
read rude posts about themselves, drawing upwards of 50 million
views.
Chris Hardwick's "@Midnight" dominates Twitter trends well into the
next day with #HashtagWars, as audiences tweet their answers to
missives such as #MakeTVShowsPunk or #SuperheroLyrics.
As a newcomer, 31-year-old South African comedian Noah has a new
digital team for "The Daily Show" to distribute content across
numerous platforms. It's especially important for Noah, who garnered
29,000 tweets during his Monday debut, to connect with audiences on
social media, executive producer Jen Flanz said.
"He is young and he is engaged in that world. He is used to being a
standup comedian and most of them have very open conversations with
their fans almost all the time," she said.
Social media also allows writers of late night comedy to find new
outlets for material often left out of the main show.
"On the old show (with Jon Stewart), we would have so much material
that we would just throw it away," said Flanz. "Now we have an
endless amount of time and space and so we will use it."
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Christian
Plumb)
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