TV host Jimmy Kimmel predicts that late-night shows as we know them will probably be gone in a decade.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host, who has been doing the gig for 21 years, made the remarks on the latest episode of the “Politickin’” podcast.
“I don’t know if there will be any late-night television shows on network TV in 10 years,” Kimmel said.
“Maybe there’ll be one but there won’t be a lot of them,” the 56-year-old celeb continued. “There’s a lot to watch and now people can watch anything at any time, they’ve got all these streaming services. It used to be Johnny Carson was the only thing on at 11:30 p.m. and so everybody watched and then David Letterman was on after Johnny so people watched those two shows, but now they’re so many options.”
Kimmel said social media is partially to blame because viewers don’t feel an urgency to watch the show live when they can just revisit clips at their leisure.
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“Maybe more significantly, the fact that people are easily able to watch your monologue online the next day, it really cancels out the need to watch it when it’s on the air,” he said. “Once people stop watching it when it’s on the air, networks are going to stop paying for it to be made.”
The host said he’s not happy about his prediction.
“I will have a hard time when it’s over. It worries me,” Kimmel said on the podcast. “That’s part of the reason I keep going. Each time, I think this is going to be my last contract and then I wind up signing another contract, it’s because I fear that day, that Monday after my final show, where it’s like, ‘OK, now what am I going to do?’ There aren’t a huge amount of options for late-night hosts after the shows are over. People think of you like a late-night talk show host, it’s not like you are suddenly going to start starring in films.”