Death Of Late Night: Jay Leno On What Went Wrong At 11:30, Why Joe Rogan Is ...

[SVPete]

Death Of Late Night: Jay Leno On What Went Wrong At 11:30, Why Joe Rogan Is The New Johnny Carson & How John Oliver Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About

https://deadline.com/2026/06/jay-leno-interview-death-of-late-night-youtube-john-oliver-1236957608/

EXCLUSIVE: A lot has changed in late-night, in the media and in America in the 12 years since Jay Leno stopped being the host of The Tonight Show.

For one thing, there is a new king of late-night, but he isn’t on TV.

“I mean, podcasts really are the new talk show. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson,” the 76-year-old comic and Jay Leno’s Garage frontman says, likely knowing he’ll get blowback.
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To that, Leno has some ideas why late-night has faded away, why YouTube took over and why he doesn’t worry about the critics, regardless of what side of the aisle or the desk they come from.
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DEADLINE: With all that’s going on in late-night now, your exit in 2014 looks like a prophetic move now, no?

JAY LENO: (Laughs) That’s pretty funny.

You know. I make my living as a stand-up comic. TV is a job that either lasts 13 weeks or less. OK, I was lucky — mine lasted 22 years. But the day The Tonight Show ended, I was back on the road the next night in Florida for five nights, and that’s what I do now. So for me, nothing really has changed. People always think, “How’s retirement?” Well, I’m not retired. I do 200 dates a year, ... .
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DEADLINE: Inadvertently you were ahead of the game, and you get to be your own boss, which can’t be bad?

LENO: It’s funny, because I was so fortunate that my agent dropped me right before I got The Tonight Show in 1992. I later worked it out — I saved $30 million in commissions.
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LENO: I know, I said, “All right, fine with me,” you know? I mean, I’m one of those people, when everyone wants to break up with me, I don’t plead. I go, “Fine, OK, you’re cool.“ And that was the same thing, you know, with the agent.

I mean, I remember the same thing happened when I was in The Tonight Show, and they’re gonna replace me with Conan [O’Brien], and they called me, and I said, “You know, I did No. 1 for like 17 years.” One of the executives says, “We want what’s above No. 1,“ and I go, “OK, what is above No. 1?” I mean, I just started to laugh, and they realized how stupid the statement was. I said, “You want me out? I’m out. Fine.” And then I was out.
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DEADLINE: ... There’s almost never one reason for anything, but with Stephen Colbert gone, Jimmy Kimmel thriving but under threat and everyone looking over their corporate shoulder for attacks from Donald Trump, their own bosses or Greg Gutfeld, why do you think late-night lost its swagger?

LENO: It’s boring. But here’s the thing that I think hurt late-night the most: too many commercials.

They passed some new rules before my tenure at The Tonight Show, that after 11:30 at night you could add another like five or six minutes to the hour. It came in in waves, but by the end of my time [at The Tonight Show], instead of doing like 48 minutes of show, it was only like 42 and broken up more.
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LENO: Yeah, so when I turn on late-night now, regardless of how I’m watching, if I see Jake from State Farm again, I’m gonna shoot myself in the f*cking head.

It’s like, geez … the host comes out, does the monologue, then it’s right away over to six minutes of commercials. You come back, the host talks about who’s coming up and everything out, “We’ll be right back,” and so on. All cut up.
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Why watch that when I can switch over to streaming or YouTube and I can watch an hour with Harrison Ford talking off the top of his head, as opposed to just having few minutes with the guest or with the host, you know? Johnny used to have real conversations. I tried to have real conversations. That’s seems to be gone, and the audience knows it.
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DEADLINE: You’re take on late-night has gotten you spanked more than a few times. As well as calling you a hypocrite almost a decade ago over your Monica Lewinsky jokes in the late 1990s and your calls for civility, John Oliver in particular has taken you to the woodshed over your criticism of late-night getting too partisan. It’s ironic, because, let’s be honest, you’re a pal of ex-presidents, but you’ve been pretty political over the years with your zingers too.

LENO: Well, with John Oliver, I did interview last year with the head of the Reagan Library about the humor of Ronald Reagan. Talked about having dinner with him a couple times, and blah blah blah at the White House and stuff, and you know, just telling funny stories.

One of the questions the interviewer, David Trulio, asked me was something like, “How do you think you and Johnny handled politics?” Well, we tried to make fun of both sides equally. You know, you humiliate degrade everybody equally — that’s it. I mentioned the pressures of life and people cozying up to one side more than the other. I said, “I don’t think anyone wants to hear a lecture. Why go for just half an audience?” He wanted me to say that Republicans laugh at each other more than Democrats. I’m not sure I agreed.

Anyway, this was all while Colbert still had a job at CBS

Two weeks later, Colbert gets fired. Interview comes out.

Soon after, I picked up the paper, and they have a picture of me making an angry face and saying late-night hosts are doing it wrong. I didn’t say that. I didn’t. But John Oliver goes, “Hey, Jay Leno, f*ck you. F*ck you for saying that about Colbert.” But I never said that, I never said it.

That’s why I tend not to take any of it too seriously. I never mentioned another guy being better or worse or anything. I think they all do a good job. Funny is funny. All the rest, it’s just the times we live in, that’s all.