In talking up what she called “a big, big, big year ahead in late night,” CBS entertainment chief Nina Tassler both gave the start date for the anticipated David Letterman replacement, “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” — Tuesday, Sept. 8, the day after Labor Day — but also said that after David Letterman’s departure on May 20, there would be no talk shows at 11:35 p.m. for more than three months.
Instead: reruns of scripted fare.
“We have a great opportunity to run encore presentations of our new hit shows and our enduring hit shows,” Tassler says. “So we’re going to be running some of our shows from primetime during the summer at 11:30.”
Seems an odd choice to pull talk shows for months leading up to Colbert, allowing rivals like “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” to grab audiences. And it sort of leaves hanging the new “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” which starts March 23. Will people sit through an “NCIS” rerun at 11:35 p.m. to get to Corden’s show?
CBS reruns often play better than new episodes from rival networks in prime time. Maybe it will work at late night, as well.
For his part, Colbert is in no hurry. “I have nine months to make a show, just like a baby,” he said in a statement. “So first I should find out how to make a baby.”
“With an election year ahead, it’s going to be nice to have the smartest guy in the room on at 11:30,” Tassler said of Colbert. But there hasn’t been much progress yet as they have just moved into their offices.”
“He’s got almost all of his creative team from ‘The Colbert Report’ coming to work with him,” Tassler said. “He will have music on the show. He said repeatedly, ‘I have to be as entertaining as my guests,’ so we certainly will have guests on the show.
“Whether or not he’s going to start with an opening monologue, he’s working on that right now. But clearly he knows that he is introducing himself, the real Stephen Colbert, to his audience, and he’s really putting a lot of attention on making sure that the show is still topical, is still relevant, still dealing with current events. That’s really all he’s said so far.”
At any rate, Tassler added that “For everyone at CBS, it will be very hard to say good bye to David Letterman. It has been the ultimate privilege for a true legend such as Dave to grace our air for so many years. I think everyone and anyone who works or watches television will want to be part of celebrating this incredible career as we get closer to his final broadcast in May.”
She also said “we are in conversations with Letterman about, special programming leading up to his finale.”