{"id":710463,"date":"2026-06-18T00:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710463\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T00:47:10","slug":"jay-leno-on-death-of-late-night-what-went-wrong-joe-rogan-john-oliver-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710463\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Leno On Death Of Late-Night, What Went Wrong, Joe Rogan, John Oliver & More"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEXCLUSIVE: A lot has changed in late-night, in the media and in America in the 12 years since Jay Leno<\/a> stopped being the host of The Tonight Show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor one thing, there is a new king of late-night, but he isn\u2019t on TV.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI mean, podcasts really are the new talk show. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson<\/a>,\u201d the 76-year-old comic and Jay Leno\u2019s Garage frontman says, likely knowing he\u2019ll get blowback.<\/p>\n

\n\tComing off a week where Leno had former President Joe Biden as the guest<\/a> on Garage on his YouTube<\/a> channel, the compliment to the UFC commentator from the 1999-2014 Tonight host will just pile on to political outrage in our polarized country on its 250th birthday. Truth be told, Leno admits in a wide-ranging sit-down that he\u2019s pretty used to it, and he know perfectly well that the Appointment TV days of his late-night domination are long gone.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that, Leno has some ideas why late-night has faded away, why YouTube took over and why he doesn\u2019t worry about the critics, regardless of what side of the aisle or the desk they come from.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: With all that\u2019s going on in late-night now, your exit in 2014 looks like a prophetic move now, no?<\/p>\n

\n\tJAY LENO: (Laughs) That\u2019s pretty funny.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou 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 \u2014 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\u2019s what I do now. So for me, nothing really has changed. People always think, \u201cHow\u2019s retirement?\u201d Well, I\u2019m not retired. I do 200 dates a year, and I do think I do a good show. I\u2019ve got a few other things going on, like the Garage show, that I enjoy. I have a good life after late-night.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Well, you are a YouTube star now with Garage since it left CNBC back in 2023 \u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: You know, it seems like the same thing to me, really. I mean, I enjoy it. It\u2019s different, but I enjoy it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Inadvertently you were ahead of the game, and you get to be your own boss, which can\u2019t be bad?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: It\u2019s 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 \u2014 I saved $30 million in commissions.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Jesus\u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: I know, I said, \u201cAll right, fine with me,\u201d you know? I mean, I\u2019m one of those people, when everyone wants to break up with me, I don\u2019t plead. I go, \u201cFine, OK, you\u2019re cool.\u201c And that was the same thing, you know, with the agent.<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, I remember the same thing happened when I was in The Tonight Show, and they\u2019re gonna replace me with Conan [O\u2019Brien], and they called me, and I said, \u201cYou know, I did No. 1 for like 17 years.\u201d One of the executives says, \u201cWe want what\u2019s above No. 1,\u201c and I go, \u201cOK, what is above No. 1?\u201d I mean, I just started to laugh, and they realized how stupid the statement was. I said, \u201cYou want me out? I\u2019m out. Fine.\u201d And then I was out.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: It wasn\u2019t pretty, I remember.<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Yeah, but then what happened was Craig Ferguson came along, and he started beating Conan. Then I got a call from Jeff Zucker<\/a> saying, \u201cI think I made a mistake.\u201d I said: \u201cYeah, I told you.\u201d Zucker said \u201cWe\u2019d like to have you back.\u201d OK, \u201cFine, I\u2019ll come back, whatever you want,\u201d you know? I don\u2019t have manager; I don\u2019t have a full-time agent. I negotiate everything myself.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Jay, dude, why bother at this point? Who needs the stress?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Yeah, I know, it\u2019s really stupid. Then again, I have a house in Beverly Hills, so it\u2019s working out. The nice thing about doing your own negotiations, you find out exactly how people feel. The client might say, \u201cLeno sucks, I can\u2019t stand that guy.\u201d If you have an agent doing your negotiations, what you hear is, \u201cOh, he likes you, he just doesn\u2019t have anything for you right now.\u201d Yeah, sure.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: \u201cDon\u2019t have anything for you now\u201d sounds like an epitaph for late-night in 2026. There\u2019s almost never one reason for anything, but with Stephen Colbert<\/a> gone, Jimmy Kimmel thriving but under threat and everyone looking over their corporate shoulder for attacks from Donald Trump<\/a>, their own bosses or Greg Gutfeld, why do you think late-night lost its swagger?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: It\u2019s boring. But here\u2019s the thing that I think hurt late-night the most: too many commercials.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: That\u2019s from 1984, when the FCC pulled off limits on the amount of ad time. By 2014, when you left Tonight, it was way up there \u2014 like you said, 18 or 16 minutes for the hour.<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Yeah, so when I turn on late-night now, regardless of how I\u2019m watching, if I see Jake from State Farm again, I\u2019m gonna shoot myself in the f*cking head.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s like, geez \u2026 the host comes out, does the monologue, then it\u2019s right away over to six minutes of commercials. You come back, the host talks about who\u2019s coming up and everything out, \u201cWe\u2019ll be right back,\u201d and so on. All cut up.<\/p>\n

\n\tEnough already. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy watch that when I can switch over to streaming or YouTube and I can watch an hour with Harrison Ford<\/a> 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\u2019s seems to be gone, and the audience knows it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Can it come back?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: It\u2019s not that people are better or worse, it\u2019s the fact that the whole medium has changed. The idea that you have to turn the TV on 11:30 p.m. to hear what was being said, like appointment television, that sounds ridiculous now.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Devil\u2019s advocate \u2014 why?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Because you can watch TV whenever you want now, you can watch whatever show whatever you want, you know, so that\u2019s what\u2019s really ruined it. There\u2019s no immediacy. People used to say, \u201cOh, let\u2019s see what David Letterman or whoever had to say about the president\u2019s thing today,\u201d and you and the whole world simultaneously at 11:30 knew what they thought. Now you can look it up anytime, and whenever you watch it, if you miss it, that\u2019s OK, you know? So yeah, that\u2019s what\u2019s really changed.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Johnny<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Carson, left, Joe Rogan<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Sounds like Jay Leno is channeling Marshall McLuhan. That you\u2019re saying, it\u2019s the medium, not the message?<\/p>\n

LENO: Yeah, I think that\u2019s fair to say.<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, podcasts really are the new talk shows. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, Joe talks to everybody about everything. There\u2019s no FCC to step in and say what you say and can\u2019t say, so you really do get an unfiltered idea of what everybody thinks. So yeah, I mean, to me, that\u2019s what\u2019s also changed late-night.<\/p>\n

\n\tI talk to young people \u2014 they don\u2019t know CBS, NBC<\/a> or ABC, Channel Four; they know Channel 682 or whatever. They just go to YouTube. Which is amazing. If you had predicted YouTube would be the most popular channel in the world 10 years ago, I think people would have said, \u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d But it is now.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Last<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u2018Last Week Tonight with John Oliver<\/a>\u2018<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHBO<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: You\u2019re take on late-night has gotten you spanked more than a few times. As well as calling you a hypocrite almost a decade ago<\/a> 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\u2019s ironic, because, let\u2019s be honest, you\u2019re a pal of ex-presidents, but you\u2019ve been pretty political over the years with your zingers too.<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Well, with John Oliver, I did interview<\/a> last year with the head of the Reagan Library about the humor of Ronald Reagan<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the questions the interviewer, David Trulio, asked me was something like, \u201cHow do you think you and Johnny handled politics?\u201d Well, we tried to make fun of both sides equally. You know, you humiliate degrade everybody equally \u2014 that\u2019s it. I mentioned the pressures of life and people cozying up to one side more than the other. I said, \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone wants to hear a lecture. Why go for just half an audience?\u201d He wanted me to say that Republicans laugh at each other more than Democrats. I\u2019m not sure I agreed.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnyway, this was all while Colbert still had a job at CBS<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo weeks later, Colbert gets fired. Interview comes out.<\/p>\n

\n\tSoon 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\u2019t say that. I didn\u2019t. But John Oliver goes, \u201cHey, Jay Leno, f*ck you. F*ck you for saying that about Colbert.\u201d But I never said that, I never said it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s 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\u2019s just the times we live in, that\u2019s all.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Joe<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJoe Biden<\/a> with Jay Leno on \u2018Jay Leno\u2019s Garage\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Jay Leno<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: On the flip of that, you had Joe Biden on Jay Leno\u2019s Garage this week<\/a>. You seem to like Biden \u2014 what kind of reaction do you expect from the GOP and MAGA on you guys cruising around in Biden\u2019s Corvette?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: (Laughs) They\u2019ll write and say, \u201cI will never watch your program again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0Yeah, I got it.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut here\u2019s the thing, first of all, it\u2019s free on YouTube. I don\u2019t really care if you watch it or not, you know? But there\u2019ll be all these people that you know will go on that Biden\u2019s a crook, blah blah, That I just had his point of view on Trump, it wasn\u2019t the whole gamut. Whatever. It\u2019s just us driving around. I don\u2019t really worry about it.<\/p>\n

\n\tDEADLINE: Really?<\/p>\n

\n\tLENO: Yeah, like I said, we used to brag about the fact that Johnny and I would try to make fun of both sides equally. Looks like that doesn\u2019t work anymore. The audience is all over the place. I just think the most important thing is to remember funny is funny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: A lot has changed in late-night, in the media and in America in the 12 years since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1036,12,88,12667,3381,17974,306402,3319,20991,19015,1254,17570,10674,24533,92,9280],"class_list":["post-710463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-comedy","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-harrison-ford","tag-interview","tag-jay-leno","tag-jeff-zucker","tag-joe-biden","tag-john-oliver","tag-johnny-carson","tag-nbc","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-tonight-show","tag-tv","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}