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Late-Night Went Really Dark This Summer

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Jimmy Fallon has spent most of the summer as the sole torchbearer for late-night on broadcast television.

The Tonight Show host has been palling around with Katseye, trying on QVC wigs, starting his own microdrama, interviewing almost everyone involved in The Odyssey and making fun of the President.

He has, essentially, held down the fort of late-night all by himself. Jimmy Kimmel has been on his annual summer holiday and Seth Meyers has been largely off since the middle of June and will return at the end of September. Stephen Colbert, of course, is off writing a Lord of the Rings movie after being unceremoniously axed by CBS.

Meyers was off between June 18 and July 13, returning for two weeks before departing on July 30 and will eventually be back on September 21. This is much longer than recent breaks; last year he was off between July 18 and August 12 as well as the last week of August and in 2024 he was off the last two weeks of August (although admittedly it was an election year, which may have played into things).

“We got a break coming up. I wish we didn’t. We like being here with you guys, but we’ll be back, we’ll be refreshed,” he said on an episode of his YouTube series Corrections.

Late Night with Seth Meyers (Paula Lobo/NBC)

“We’re about to take a very long hiatus and when we take very long hiatuses, one of the things that people say is that we’re going to miss so much. Because of that, we, through back channels, reached out to the White House and he agreed he’s not going to be weird. Until we get back,” he joked.

Kimmel has been taking the summers off since 2020, having baked in the idea to his contract with ABC. His show has been guest hosted by the likes of Anthony Anderson, Colman Domingo, Ike Barinholtz and Tiffany Haddish with Rosie O’Donnell filling his seat this week.

This long summer break is also interesting given that it coincides with Emmy voting season. Only John Oliver is on air this week as voting starts tomorrow so voters won’t be swayed by the latest monologue from Kimmel or Stewart as they choose who will win Outstanding Variety Series (although given the current rules, all five nominees – The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight, The Late Show and Saturday Night Live – could win an award in September).

Late-night hosts taking time off during the doldrums of summer is not a concern, in itself, but this year’s broadcast line-up feels like a harbinger. Many believe that the storied Tonight Show will be the last late-night franchise on air – Fallon is currently signed up to host through 2028, much like Meyers – but the cancelation of The Late Show, CBS deciding to move away from late-night altogether and the likelihood of Kimmel leaving sooner rather than later makes it feel like a sign of things to come.

The fact that Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver only signed up for a one-year deal, rather than his traditional three years, is also a worry, although that says more about the state of his employer, Warner Bros. Discovery, which is in a complicated corporate takeover situation, than the state of late-night comedy.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Yes, there’s still The Daily Show but the Comedy Central show is itself is on a longer hiatus than last year, essentially taking all of August off, returning on September 8, and Andy Cohen’s Bravo talker Watch What Happens Live is still a thriving spot for reality gossip.

Ad spending on linear late-night shows is clearly continuing to fall; ad intelligence agency Guideline noted that spend went from $439M in 2018 to $221M in 2024.

The narrative is that late-night is being replaced by YouTube shows.

Trevor Noah and Conan O’Brien are prospering with the former Daily Show host having nearly 5M subscribers on the Google-owned platform and the former Tonight Show has nearly 10M subs for his Team Coco channel.

But the new breed of “late-night” shows on YouTube such as Julian Shapiro Barnum’s Outside Tonight and Ben Gleib’s Good Night are struggling to break through. Some of Barnum’s Outside Tonight episodes are receiving hundreds thousand viewers, but the channel has fewer than 8,000 subscribers, while many clips of Good Night get only a few hundred views.

Fallon hasn’t addressed the fact that he’s largely alone on late-night island this summer, but he did recently tell USA Today that he feels some responsibility to carry the genre into the next generation

“The idea of it is that it’s just someone that you can talk to that’s there for you, that you can laugh, and you can know what’s going on in pop culture in the world,” he said. “I think that’s just needed.”

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‘Mormon Wives,’ ‘Love Island’ Stars Sign With Select Management Group

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EXCLUSIVE: Select Management Group has added nine reality stars to its roster: Chelley B and Parmida Keshani from Peacock’s Love Island USA; Leah Barrs, Mitchell Bienvenue, Tamaya Denae and Taylor Hayward from Freeform/Hulu’s Million Dollar Nannies; Bri Davis and Ashleigh Pease from Hulu’s upcoming The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County; and Jimmy Sotos from Netflix’s Perfect Match.

From Love Island USA, Chelley B has built a loyal following around relationships, personal growth and community, while also bringing her Haitian heritage and personal experiences to her content. Her connection with fans has led to opportunities across lifestyle, beauty, fashion and relationship-focused brands. Keshani’s background in kinesiology and professional coaching has led to opportunities at the intersection of wellness, fitness and women’s lifestyle partnerships.

Signees from Million Dollar Nannies include Barrs, the founder of a nanny-led agency known for her work with high-profile families, which has given her a unique platform at the intersection of luxury childcare, family, travel and lifestyle; Bienvenue, a lifestyle creator whose content centers on outdoor adventures, travel and an active lifestyle; Denae, a fashion and lifestyle creator whose content sits at the intersection of wellness, beauty and fashion; and Hayward, a nanny and content creator who offers an inside look at childcare and family life.

Australian lifestyle creator Pease, one of the stars of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County, shares a candid look at life as a mom of four in Orange County, with content spanning family, relationships, lifestyle and everyday life. Nurse and lifestyle creator Davis brings a clinical background to content spanning beauty, wellness, women’s health, travel and everyday life.

Then, there’s Perfect Match‘s Sotos, a former Ohio State basketball player who made the leap from college athletics to reality TV amid his search for love in Perfect Match Season 4.

Select Management Group is a next-generation talent management and media company whose clients include The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives franchise’s Jennifer Affleck, Mikayla Mathews, Mayci Neeley, Jessi Ngatikaura, Aspyn Ovard and Layla Taylor, as well as other unscripted talent such as the Love Island universe’s Jeremiah Brown and Taylor Williams. The company sees unscripted as one of the creator economy’s strongest pipelines for next-generation talent and has been at the forefront of efforts to bridge that gap.

Select Management is part of the Propagate Content family of companies, which also includes Artists First, Authentic Talent & Literary Management, Parker Management and Sway Social, among others. Other recent unscripted signings include Love Island USA‘s Sean Reifel and Love Overboard stars Leela J Ambrose-Fleck, Sadé Idera and Bella Palk.

The firm’s production arm, Select Entertainment, produces Hulu’s The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, as well as its Orange County spinoff.

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‘Clueless’ Eyes More OG Cast Returns Alongside Alicia Silverstone

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Paramount+ recently greenlighted Clueless as an event series, and is looking to pull all the stops making it an event by reassembling the original cast.

As Deadline reported, the project, a sequel to the cult-classic 1995 Paramount Pictures teen comedy film starring Silverstone, landed at Paramount+ after getting a pass at Peacock, with Silverstone set to reprise her role as the Beverly Hills’ it-girl Cher Horowitz.

“We decided to make it an event series because it deserves to be an event,” Paramount+ Head of Originals Jane Wiseman told Deadline in a wide-raging interview about the streamer’s programming strategy. “We feel like this is going to be something that people are going to come to in droves — already you can tell — if you want to get the cast back together, if you want to see where everyone is.”

According to sources, Clueless was picked up off of a pilot script. While the rest of the episodes have not been written yet, I hear the plan is to bring as many of the film’s stars — which include Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash, Donald Faison, Wallace Shawn, Jeremy Sisto and Breckin Meyer — back. (Fellow cast member Btittany Murphy died in 2009.)

“Oh, we would love it,” Wiseman said about the idea, confirming that no other OG actors besides Silverstone have deals to come back.

According to sources, some actors have not even been approached yet. Filming is slated to begin in Los Angeles in 2027.

‘Clueless’: Justin Walker, director Amy Heckerling, Elissa Donovan, Brittany Murphy, Alicia Silverstone, Jeremy Sisto, Stacey Dash, Wallace Shawn, Paul Rudd, Breckin Meyer, Donald Faison on set

Paramount

From Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Jordan Weiss and CBS Studios, Clueless picks up 30 years after the original film. Beloved Beverly Hills icon Cher Horowitz (Silverstone) has figured out a lot: She’s successful in business and has mastered motherhood — that is, until her daughter’s high school years, and Cher finds that parenting a teenager makes her feel “clueless” all over again.

“It’s a mother-daughter story, which I don’t want to overlook because we’re really excited about the next generation of Clueless,” Wiseman said. “Sitting across the table from Alicia Silverstone and hearing her talk about the character, it just makes so much sense. We really wanted to get the band back together and celebrate it in an event series, and that really is what hit home for us.”

As for whether Clueless could continue beyond the initial limited series, Wiseman left the door ajar.

“If I can leave it open-ended, I’d like to,” she said. “But the idea is that this particular version of the show is supposed to be an event. It’s supposed to be open and closed where Cher is in her life and what she and her daughter are up to, and how we can bring the cast back to celebrate it.”

Schwartz, Savage and Weiss are writing the series, which is executive produced by Schwartz & Savage viaa their Fake Empire banner, Weiss, Silverstone and the original film’s writer-director Amy Heckerling and producer Robert Lawrence.

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‘Industry’ Adds Cary Elwes, Dianna Agron, Sam Riley, More For Season 5

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Industry is rounding out the cast for the financial thriller’s upcoming fifth and final season with a whole host of guest and supporting roles.

The series has added Cary Elwes, Dianna Agron, Sam Riley, Jessica Brown Findlay, Luke Manley, Bally Gill and Eduard Poliakov, HBO revealed Monday. The castings also give a slight indication as to the direction for Season 5, building on the previously announcement that Zosia Mamet has joined Season 5 as Carmen Dame, a fitness influencer-turned-wellness tech founder and CEO.

Agron is playing Skip Binksy, CFO of a wellness tech company — whether its one and the same, or a rival wellness tech company, remains to be seen. Elwes will play Padgett Stillman, an investor.

Riley has been cast as Solomon Kerr, an elusive British businessman who made his fortune in Silicon Valley. Brown Findlay is Marina St. Clair, a family friend of Sir Henry Muck. Gill has snagged the role of Nikesh Shah, a charistmatic left-wing politician.

There is also a few new traders in the mix. Manley is set to play Stevie Delmonte, an execution trader. And last but certainly not least, Poliakov has been cast as Olexij Kovalchuk, also a trader.

Industry has transcended extremely humble beginnings as a modest series about a group of young financial professionals on the trading floor at a prestigious global investment firm.

Global viewing for Season 4 has outpaces the third season by roughly 30%, per the network. In the U.S., episodes were averaging 1.7M viewers by the time it was renewed for its fifth and final season ahead of the Season 4 finale. That’s after the Season 4 premiere jumped 20% over that of Season 3 in just three days with 800,000 U.S. cross-platform viewers.

Industry is created, written, and executive produced by Mickey Down & Konrad Kay. They pen the series will writer Joseph Charlton.

In Season 4, at the top of their game and living the lives they set out to have as Pierpoint grads, Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) are drawn into a high stakes, globetrotting cat-and-mouse game when a splashy fintech darling bursts onto the London scene. As Yasmin navigates her relationship with tech founder Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) and Harper is pulled into the orbit of enigmatic executive Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella), their twisted friendship begins to warp and ignite under the pressure of money, power, and the desire to be on top. 

The Season 4 cast also included Ken Leung, Miriam Petche, Sagar Radia, Toheeb Jimoh, Charlie Heaton, Amy James-Kelly, Roger Barclay, Andrew Havill, Kiernan Shipka, Kal Penn, Jack Farthing, Stephen Campbell Moore, Claire Forlani, and Edward Holcroft. 

The series is a Bad Wolf Production for HBO/BBC and is executive produced by Jane Tranter, Kate Crowther, and Ryan Rasmussen for Bad Wolf; Kathleen McCaffrey for Little Gems; and Rebecca Ferguson for BBC. Directors include Mickey Down & Konrad Kay, Michelle Savill, and Luke Snellin.

Elwes is represented by Link Entertainment and Independent Artists Group (IAG). Agron is represented by Paradigm & Hansen, Jacobson, Teller. Riley is represented by Florence Rose at Independent Talent and Tapestry London. Brown Findlay is represented by Tapestry. Manley is represented by Authentic Talent & Literary Management. Gill is represented by Max Latimer at JAG. Poliakov is represented by R Talent 

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