Giving a decidedly more generous take on the news that Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert will succeed David Letterman than, say, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly doubted whether Colbert will be able to attract the conservative audience he said makes up almost half of Americans.
“Traditionally late night has been light and breezy, with a minimum of political posturing,” the Fox News host said at the end of his program Monday. He characterized CBS’s decision to tap Colbert as the next host of “Late Night” “interesting,” then sniped that “Colbert has made an entire career on pleasing the left.”
“So he has to compete with Fallon and Kimmel, who are basically high-energy guys who like to have a good time on their shows,” he continued. “It’d be hard to fathom that 40 percent of Americans that describe themselves as conservative will watch Colbert.”
But O’Reilly, who feuded with Colbert over the past few weeks about efforts to reduce income inequality, seemed to give his rival the benefit of the doubt.
“But Colbert will have good writers and surely he knows his challenge,” he concluded.
Mediaite has video of the segment.
It sounds like O’Reilly is being careful because he knows Colbert will have a much larger audience on CBS. .
Hard to fathom Brillo having a clue.
TV by The Numbers
“The Colbert Report” was the second most-watched late night talk show among Adults 18-49, Adults 18-34, Adults 18-24, Adults 25-34, Men 18-49, Men 18-34, Men 18-24 and during 1Q 2013, finishing behind only “The Daily Show” in each of the demos.
On the digital front, TheDailyShow.com and ColbertNation.com were the top two sites among late night talk shows during 1Q 2013 to-date in Total Visits, Unique Visitors, Total Minutes/Time Spent and Videos Streamed and both shows dominate social media with more Facebook fans than any other late night talk show.
So while Brillo’s show is made up of a dying breed Colbert’s is young, intelligent and the future.
Billo is just such an expert on anything and everything. Why is it that he and other con talking heads assume they know the inner Stephen Colbert?
It’s not Conservatives who might be offended. It’s mean-spirited stupid people many of whom happen to be Republicans.
The audience Brillo is worried about is already in bed by the time Letterman/Colbert appear. And it’s not like conservatives were enamored of Letterman after all the Palin fru fru fuss a couple of years ago.
Brillo likes the conservatives as victims meme way too much.