This week, CHML’s Scott Thompson wanted to take one last look at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. We talk viewing numbers, down compared to Vancouver, naturally, but up in digital. You can read more about that here in this Olympic ratings report I wrote for The Canadian Press.
Scott wondered how CBC and NBC did with their ad revenue for all the digital viewing during the Games. Good question, one I’ll have to look into.
Scott also wondered if this might be CBC’s last Olympic hurrah. There certainly are challenges ahead for the public broadcaster.
We talk, too, about the debut of Seth Meyers on NBC’s Late Night.
For me Meyers’s first two shows seemed just okay. The former SNL Weekend Update anchor and head writer had to follow all the hype about Jimmy Fallon’s move to the Tonight Show, and it just seemed as though his Late Night lacked excitement. Meyers monologue is longer, so he seemed to be genuinely trying to fill Jay Leno’s shoes as a go-to joke destination. Seems funny to see him stand and deliver, however, after all those years at the desk.
The desk he does eventually move over to seems like it was pulled out of a classroom. The “8G” band, led by Meyers’ old SNL pal Fred Armisen, also seems a work in progress. That the mighty Roots play for Fallon makes this a brutal comparison.
What I did like about the second show was a desk bit where Meyers’ show seems to get hijacked by three members of the studio audience. It was different, a little riskier, which is what you should be testing out at 12:37 a.m. More of that, please.
Previous late night hosts, especially Craig Ferguson, suggest you should never review the first 13 weeks or half season of these shows, that it takes a long time to find a rhythm or stride. Certainly a look back at Ferguson’s first few weeks, or Conan O’Brien’s way back on Late Night, bore little resemblance to the shows they eventually took ownership of. Same with Jimmy Kimmel.
Fallon, on the other hand, just seems to keep picking up speed over on Tonight. That lip synch bit he did this week with Paul Rudd doing his best Tina Turner impression was a scream.
There’s more to the discussion; you can listen in here.
