Actor Vince Vaughn tore into late night television and explained why he thinks it’s going by the wayside in a recent interview with Theo Von (couple of Vaughns/Vons cutting it up).
It’s no secret that programs like The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! aren’t the juggernauts that they used to be. Network television used to be the end goal… now it’s falling behind, and struggling to keep up with modern media. If you were looking for a sign that late night television programs were on life support, Stephen Colbert getting fired – and then The Late Show ending altogether – is your sign.
As media has continued to evolve, late night shows have tried their best to adapt. That’s mainly been achieved through leaning into clips, and prioritizing bits or interviews that had the chance to go viral. But here’s the thing… shows like The Tonight Show used to be one of the only places where you could hear from your favorite celebrity or artist.
Now there’s thousands of podcasts out there that provide interviews that feel more authentic.
That’s exactly the point that Vince Vaughn made when he sat down on This Past Weekend with Theo Von. The actor known for his iconic roles in movies like Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers talked about how podcasts have slowly but surely taken over the place in media that late night shows used to fill:
“The podcasts have gotten so much more popular with less production, less writers and less staff. People want authenticity. I think that the talk shows, to a large part, became really agenda based. They were gonna evangelize people to what they thought. So people just rejected it because it didn’t feel authentic. It felt like they had an agenda.”
Podcast interviews usually mean more long form conversations too, which definitely tend to be more authentic. You can fake it for a couple of minutes… but it’s hard to put on a front for an hour straight.
Vince Vaughn thinks that – as well as the political takeover that happened to late night shows – contributed to the media form’s downfall. He doubled down on his take about those types of shows feeling more agenda-based than funny, and even said that all late night programming sounds and looks the same now because everyone got lost in the politics:
“It stopped being funny and it started feeling like I was in a f***ing class I didn’t want to take. But if you look at what happened to the talk shows and why their ratings are low, it’s got only to do with the fact that they all became the same show. And they all became so about their politics and who’s good and who’s bad. Imagine sitting next to someone like that on a f***ing plane. You’d be like, ‘Bro, how do I get out of this seat?'”
Vaughn has probably got a point there. Late night television used to send you off to bed with a laugh… not a political lecture. That’s what people want out of those types of shows, and there’s not really anyone doing that anymore.
You can hear the full interview with Vince Vaughn in the latest episode of Theo Von’s podcast (ironic that the movie star’s point against late night shows came in the form of a podcast interview, eh?):
This Past Weekend with Theo Von – Vince Vaughn
