Jimmy Kimmel And Stephen Colbert Are Leading Fundraises For Joe Biden
Late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are helping Joe Biden raise money for his campaign.
Last weekend, Kimmel led a celebrity fundraiser for Biden's 2024 campaign that reportedly raised over $30 million. The Los Angeles-based event featured George Clooney, Julia Roberts, former President Barack Obama, and Biden himself.
The event topped the Colbert-led $26 million fundraiser in March in New York City.
Kimmel and Colbert are not exactly news pundits. They refer to themselves as late-night comedians. Still, political commentary is profoundly featured on both of their shows. So, the hosts using their names to raise money for a specific candidate undoubtedly blurs the line between comedy and activism.
Then again, the current batch of late-night hosts aren't exactly shy about their hyper-partisan intentions.
In January, Media Research Center analyzed each of the 9,518 political jokes told on late-night television in 2023. The watchdog found that 81% of those jokes targeted conservatives.
To conduct the study, MRC analyzed the following six shows:
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!," "The Daily Show," "Late Night with Seth Meyers," "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and "The Late Late Show with James Corden."
Of the six, Kimmel's program had the highest rate of anti-conservative jokes. Some 88% of "jokes" Kimmel told were aimed at conservatives, including 762 jokes about Donald Trump.
The same research center learned that 95% of late-night guests in 2023 were "liberals."
Via Getty Images.
Late-night television's decision to succumb to partisan politics has cost the genre.
"In 2024, CBS’ "Late Show' is down 8% in total viewers compared to the first six months of 2023 for the biggest decline of the trio, while NBC’s ‘Tonight Show’ is down 12% for the biggest loss among the key demographic ages of 25-54 during the same period," Fox News Digital reported on Wednesday.
Ad revenue for the top six late-night shows is also down more than 50% since 2014 and 60% from its peak in 2016, according to Axios.
As a result, the long-term viability of late-night television is a question. The programs require hefty investments in talent salaries and production costs, but no longer provide lucrative returns.
The Los Angeles Magazine reported in April that "The Late Late Show" with James Corden lost, on average, over $20 million a year. As a result, CBS canceled the 30-year-old series last year instead of replacing Corden.
NBC is also reportedly mulling moving "Late Night With Seth Meyers" from the network to MSNBC in an effort to increase revenue on the flagship station.
Consider that while Kimmel and Colbert generate more revenue than Corden or Meyers, they cost far more to employ. Thereby there are reasonable doubts within the industry about whether ABC and CBS can still profit from late-night television.
Perhaps Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert should be more concerned about raising money for their shows than for Joe Biden.