Stephen Colbert still has seven months left of his Late Show on CBS, but at least one media mogul has his eye on his prime 11:30 p.m. timeslot.
Byron Allen, the comedian-turned media mogul, already has his Comics Unleashed show on CBS at 12: 30 a.m., but he said Wednesday that he is absolutely interested in 11:30 once Colbert exits next May.
“Let me be clear… if they are looking for a show, my hand is already up,” Allen said at Advertising Week New York Wednesday, in a conversation with LateNighter columnist Bill Carter, adding that his dream was to host the Tonight Show one day (Allen made his TV debut on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show). “Fifty years I have been waiting for this moment, definitely I am going for it.”
Allen noted that he brought Comics Unleashed, a classic stand-up comedy series featuring both established and up-and-coming talent, and hosted by Allen himself, to CBS after James Corden left The Late Late Show. His company ran a 19-week trial before CBS launched After Midnight, as a time buy. When After Midnight ended, Allen’s show once again took over the slot, this time running two half hour episodes, one new and one classic.
“I said, mathematically, you will never beat this show,” Allen recalled. “Why would you spend $35 million on a television show at that hour? I will happily produce the show, and you can save that $35 [million], $40 million and spend it elsewhere.”
Comics Unleashed is a stand-up show, but the jokes not what you might expect to see in the comedy clubs.
“Day one I said this show is to be evergreen, no topical humor, no political humor, I don’t want anything that is racist, homophobic, antisemitic, I don’t want any of that,” Allen told Carter. “The thing I said to them [the participating comics] was, in television, you don’t have to be the funniest, you have to be the most likable.”
CBS has not said what it plans to do at 11:30, beyond noting that it will not reboot The Late Show with a different host. Whether Allen’s pitch will appear to the powers-that-be at Paramount, however, is a whole other question.
