Back in the 1970s, Johnny Carson explained why he didn't use his show to push causes or for partisan politics. Basically Carson realized that alienating half (or more) of your potential audience isn't good for ratings, and there were other reasons he avoided political activism on his show:
Now, over the last decade-plus, late night shows are being used increasingly as places that regurgitate DNC talking points, and it shows in the viewership over the years:
the irony: it's free speech's fault all their shows imploded pic.twitter.com/d5Ej4RaTWK
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 19, 2025
Still, pushing their politics continues to take precedence over trying to correct the plunging ratings:
🚨 MRC EXCLUSIVE: In 2025, Late Night told over 7,000 Trump jokes and almost every guest (99%) was a liberal. @nypost https://t.co/yyLkyw83MG
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) December 20, 2025
Late night takes hard left turn — with 7K Trump jokes, and gags targeting conservatives up 92%: study https://t.co/Q44OAvfJcx pic.twitter.com/r0Bbh975ce
— New York Post (@nypost) December 20, 2025
Not only do some of these hosts take a side, they actively demonstrate how much they loathe anybody who thinks differently.
They’ve never not hated the Right. That’s literally all they do. https://t.co/NZihNOCN86
— The🐰FOO (@PolitiBunny) December 20, 2025
And it shows:
Late night is more lefty than ever — with 92% of jokes targeting the right and liberal guests outnumbering conservative ones almost 100 to 1, according to new data shared exclusively with The Post.
Jokes targeting conservatives rose 10% in 2025 from the year before, according to media watchdog NewsBusters, who went through 818 episodes this year.
It found that across the Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and Daily Show universe, 197 liberal guests appeared and only two conservative ones.
Recommended
Colbert's show that's being canceled in the spring was reportingly losing the network $40 million a year and they just kept up the TDS.
And the best part is that this is not leading to better ratings in any capacity… https://t.co/foaDQGlhEl
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) December 20, 2025
No it isn't.
“The numbers don’t lie…So-called late-night comedians are part of the entire elitist media complex that has fueled hatred of conservatives for years.” —@DavidBozell @theMRC
— Brian Doherty (@BDOH) December 20, 2025
At this point one of the networks might as well give Jim Acosta his own "comedy" show.
*****