Where’s the Color in Late Night Television?

What in the hell happened to the Arsenio Hall Show? The famed show of the MTV generation was abruptly canceled in 1994 due to low ratings. (Ok, not actually. The show was actually canceled due to a controversial interview with Louis Farrakhan, which led to various corporate complaints, boycotts, and advertising losses, which ultimately led to Paramount’s cancellation of the show. However, that is a story for another day). With the absence of that show, there is no preeminent black talk show during the late night hours, and that is not okay.

I know that the hallways of production companies are littered with failed black late night programs; VIBE’s late night show, Magic Johnson’s show, Keenan Ivory Wayans’ show, and currently running (but not so popular) Byron Allen’s show. None of these shows ever experienced the type of success that Arsenio Hall did. However, Hall was a pioneer. He brought black entertainment and hip-hop acts to the mainstream. And because his show and his acts were so well perceived, he forced other late night performers (mainly, Jay Leno and David Letterman) to give way to more black entertainers and musicians.

Currently, black people do not have any late-night hosts that look like them on television. Instead, mainstream media has littered the late-night waves with host that resemble the audience they are going after: 25-45-year old men, which explains the latest career bumps to NBC’s Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon.

However, what about the newest MTV generation, or the Millennials, if you will? They are not necessarily drawn to the Leno’s and Fallons of the world. In fact, they would flock to a guy like Arsenio Hall if he wore on late-night television doing something of interest to their generation.

I know what the typical response to a black-themed form of media is: “There isn’t a market for it.” However, I don’t think that’s the case here. You mean to tell me, that an entire race of black people, in addition to a very diverse population of Millenials isn’t out there for the taking during the hours of 11:35pm to 1:30am? I’m not saying it would be an easy demographic to attain, as there would be a huge fight with niche cable channels and what not, but the later the show comes on, the less competition there would be, and I think this is a battle that the right host, and right network could win.

I don’t have an idea for a host, as I will leave that up to you all. Nevertheless, I do have an idea as to what network should go ahead and run with this idea.

Of course, it is Fox! I know. I’m not the biggest fan of what they’re doing with their cable-news channel either, but their lack of any weeknight, late-night programming, means their stations already have a market they can try to capture, and let’s face it, most of the off-the-wall shows are already on Fox: The Simpson’s, Family Guy, American Dad. Quite frankly, the people who watch those shows are probably the target audience for a young, hip-hop genre talk show featuring a black host. Hell, such a show would do a whole lot better there than it would on CBS (too old of an audience) or ABC (too much of a family oriented channel).

With Fox in mind, why don’t those of you who were once fans of the Arsenio Hall Show, chime in, and tell me who you think would be the perfect fit to be the next black, late-night TV host. I will throw my own suggestions in the comment section as well.

~ by Uzo Ometu on June 1, 2009.