After all, if timeslot distinctions are growing less and less relevant-if fans, in the millions, can tune into a “Carpool Karaoke” video on YouTube-then what makes Colbert senior to Corden at all? Corden’s recent appearance on Colbert’s show seemed like an attempt to redress the balance, with Colbert mockingly dropping a pen every time the ebullient Corden dropped a name. Which leads to an uncomfortable situation, whereby CBS’s biggest star doesn’t quite feel like their biggest star. He is behind NBC’s Seth Meyers in the ratings, but Corden, bolstered by a huge following online, certainly feels as though he has a great deal of momentum. (“Carpool Karaoke,” whose Adele edition got 107 million views online, also got its own primetime special.) The CBS upfront, an annual presentation directed at advertisers, placed Corden front and center as he opened the show with a parody of Hamilton, the frontrunner at this year’s Tonys (which he will host) Colbert got less time, later on.
On the night of the Super Bowl, when both CBS late night shows followed the game, Colbert seemed at times unsteady in his live broadcast, while Corden sucked up all the next-day press coverage with an edition of his wildly popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment and a Pepsi-ad parody with Cindy Crawford. The appointment, in April, of a new executive producer suggested that the network wanted what Vulture’s Joe Adalian called “a set of outside eyes.”īut while Colbert has seen some challenges, Corden has done nothing but win.
A New York Times piece on Colbert’s “uneven” first eight months cited an interview with Casey Affleck as particularly grim: “Neither acted as if he wanted to be there for the too-familiar promotional exercise.” Outside the realm of celebrity, he also hasn’t found a voice on politics nearly as strong as the one he used to such great effect on Comedy Central. Coming in to replace the well-established and immediately identifiable David Letterman, Colbert has seemed at times ill at ease with the anachronistic demands of being a late-night host, like interviews. Colbert, though in my view the best of the three major late-night hosts, has had a rocky entry onto the network scene after hanging up his Colbert Report faux-conservative persona.
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