CBS Late Night Changes

ITV2 used to run Letterman at about 9pm the day-or-so after the original transmission.
FTN of all channels ran the Tonight Show with Jay Leno during its existence, again 1 day later, at 10pm.
CNBC Europe currently shows the Tonight Show.

Didn't it slip quickly on ITV2? I remember watching it in the 11pm-midnight slot before it was moved to itv4.

I think it could be a good idea for channel 5 to go for it to put it into the 11pm hour. They have quite a loyal audience to BBBOTS, it shows that the slot could work for them.

Also, TruTV UK show Conan at 11pm from Monday-Thursday.

CNBC Europe edits Jimmy Tonight show down to 30mins, So at least 15mins is cut, even if you take out the sponser etc there is 13mins cut ...

Who first aired Letterman over here? Was it Channel 4? The Daily Show ran for just over 5 years at 8pm on More 4 which, I think, is most stability any US talkshow has had over here.

Paramount Comedy or Sky One - I can't remember. Then we had ITV2, ITV4 and Diva TV. We had The Tonight Show on FTN followed by CNBC Europe. Late Night was on CNBC Europe for a while as well. Conan airs on TBS. The Colbert Report was briefly shown on FX (now known as Fox). The Daily Show was More 4 and now Comedy Central Extra at silly-o-clock. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight gets a very respectable timeslot on Sky Atlantic.


ITV2 used to have Letterman on at 7/7.30pm to start with I think then it dropped to 11/11.30pm followed by about 1/1.30am before it was dropped. ITV4 promoted it a lot for the channel launch but it was still on at 1am, but briefly moved to 11/11.30pm for a short time before ditching to the graveyard slot again, then axed.

Letterman did his week of shows on the South Bank back in the 1990s and that was broadcast on BBC2.

As I recall, Dave's old show from NBC, Late Night With David Letterman, was shown briefly on Channel 4 in the mid 1980's. I'm not sure how long it ran over here for though. The Late Show With David Letterman (CBS) was first aired on Sky One in 1993 or 1994.

The Paramount Comedy Channel took over the rights in 2000 a few months after Sky decided not to renew. This was only for a year. Letterman was off our screens then until ITV2 bought the show in (IIRC) 2002. It was only a matter of time before the ITV2 schedulers started playing timeslot tennis with the show, dumping it at around 2-3am when virtually no-one would be watching.

Sometimes ITV2 would not show it at all, in favour of Pop Idol Extra repeats. That was around the time I started a thread on this very forum called (IIRC) "Why I hate ITV2" or words to that effect.

Didn't Ch5 try a late night talk show? but the host was crap? and this is failed? I think its tried again with a 7pm format!

Jack Docherty was the original C5 show, airing every weeknight at 11 or thereabouts, before being reduced to 3 nights, then 2 before finally disappearing after about 18 months.

It used to get better ratings when it was Not The Jack Docherty Show - hosted by stand-ins including a certain Graham Norton, Phil Jupitus and even Melinda Messenger!

Chris Moyles, then Christian O'Connell hosted the short-lived 7/7.30 show which was produced by Chris Evans production company about 2004 ish.

I guess a talk show fitted into the original Channel 5 line up quite well, given how much of the daytime was live talk based. The morning was a consumer show and the afternoon was a magazine format as I recall.

In fact on the British Comedy Awards Jack Docherty and Graham Norton were both nominated for the same award for presenting The Jack Docherty Show..... and Graham Norton won.


I thought Jack was OK at it, but the problem was that they had to come up with new formats and 'new' talent virtually from scratch. If that had been on an established channel a nightly talk show and it's presenter would have evolved into that position rather than just be flung into the schedules.

Mind you I did see a pilot of a rival bid for a nightly talk show being recorded. I can't remember who the presenter was but it was very conventional and dull in comparison to what they got

Incidently Norton presented a panel show in the early days of Channel 5 called Bring Me The Head of Light Entertainment.

I really liked the Jack Docherty show but they just struggled with getting decent guests I think.

And that Norton panel show was pretty good too.

You know, a lot of the C5 line up when it started was pretty decent... never thought I'd say that.