Study: Late-Night TV got more liberal in 2025...

[posty 2,849]

You don't say...

https://deadline.com/2025/12/late-night-tv-more-liberal-2025-study-1236655871/

Late-night television has had a wounding year; The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was canceled ahead of David Ellison’s purchase of Paramount, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off air following a furor around Charlie Kirk’s murder and CBS axed its 12:30am slot.

Pressure from the right, whether direct in Kimmel’s case or implied in Colbert’s, was a defining feature of the year for the sector so it’s not a huge surprise that the content of these shows got more liberal, according to a new study.

The Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group which is part-funded by Republican donor Robert Mercer, clocked that 92% of jokes told on the six nightly late-night shows were aimed at conservatives.

The group analyzed jokes from Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from January 6 through December 19, as well as jokes told on After Midnight until its cancellation on June 12.

It found that of the 13,097 political jokes told, some 12,011 were about figures such as President Trump, Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Pete Hegseth.

This 92% figure was up from the 82% last year, per the study. Liberals were the butt of the joke just 982 times across 818 episodes, which was the first time in the study’s history that this joke count failed to reach quadruple digits.

Melania Trump, President Biden, JD Vance and Eric Trump rounded out the top ten alongside general MAGA/Trump supporters and Republicans.

Party leadership, however, was fairly even with late-night hosts mocking Mike Johnson around the same amount as they mocked Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Real America’s Voice’s Brian Glenn was the most joked-about conservative media personality.

The study found that Kimmel was the biggest source of gags against the right with 97% of his 3,046 jokes about them, understandable given that Trump and his FCC commissioner Brendan Carr went after him so directly. Colbert was next with 92% of his jokes aimed at Republicans, again, understandable given that he was canceled days after accusing his parent company Paramount of making a “bigfatbribe” to settle a lawsuit with the President to smooth over a deal with Ellison.

The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon hosted the most number of shows this year with 161 episodes but had the lowest percentage of jokes against Republicans with 89%.

[TBayXXXVII 2,682]

Yeah, shocking!

[posty 2,849]

Craig Ferguson was the best late night host IMO...  Johnny and Dave had their moments, but CraigyFerg was the best...

[supermike80 2,156]

4 minutes ago, posty said:

Craig Ferguson was the best late night host IMO...  Johnny and Dave had their moments, but CraigyFerg was the best...

100%  loved Craig