Byron Allen has made it to the late-night heights once occupied by his idol, Johnny Carson.
Carson is the man who launched Allen’s career, and Allen, after a long road through syndication and other arenas outside show business’s main rooms, now leads a show at 11:35 p.m. on a legacy broadcast network.
But he is no Johnny Carson.
And not just because Allen isn’t as talented or celebrated. Who is? The more important distinction is that Allen is not even trying to do what Carson did.
Instead, he is doing something entirely different—something that could even be described as revolutionary.
Yes, revolutionary applies, because Allen is breaking the most fundamental rule of the classic American late-night television show, as defined by Carson himself: “These shows are all about the guy behind the desk.”
Allen’s show, Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, which now rents the 11:35 property previously occupied for more than three decades by two iconic hosts, David Letterman and Stephen Colbert, is not a show built around the guy behind the desk.
It is a show built around a business model.
Paradoxically, that does make it about a guy behind a desk. It’s just that the desk isn’t in a television studio. It’s in an elegant corporate office dominated by an enormous framed display of the tweedy sports coat Allen wore when he appeared on Carson’s Tonight Show as an 18-year-old in 1979.
That trophy inside the headquarters of the Allen Media Group is now an ancient artifact, because Allen has long since subsumed his career as a comic performer under his ambition to become a titan of media. “It’s business-show, not show business!” is an oft-repeated Allen mantra.
He has acquired a broad portfolio of media properties, including a lineup of local television stations, the Weather Channel, BuzzFeed, and broadcast rights to football games from schools in Historically Black College and University conferences.
Allen has made these acquisitions with bold bids; at times he has bid for much bigger fish, including Paramount Global, ABC, and the Denver Broncos.
But nothing he’s owned has elevated his name the way his buyout of CBS’s previous late-night franchise has.
Not always in a good way. Succeeding the greatly admired Colbert, let go by CBS under circumstances widely assumed to be politically inspired, has brought scrutiny to an aspect of Allen’s flagship program that has never been his primary concern: its quality.
Already, two of Colbert’s closest peers, Jon Stewart and John Oliver, have taken sideswipes at Comics Unleashed on air. And audience levels for Unleashed, sinking well below Colbert’s, have been cited as evidence of CBS giving away a franchise for a modest check.
When Allen was asked recently if he planned to do something different with the two-decade-old syndicated-TV format of Comics Unleashed—presumably to raise its perceived quality closer to network late-night standards—he replied with an enthusiastic “definitely not!”
Why would he? The format he created—a roundtable of comics batting back setups from Byron with punchlines from their acts—can be produced on a very tight budget, completing multiple episodes in a single taping day. Because the episodes avoid any subject in the news, he’s been able to build a huge library of episodes that are replayable in bulk—even when the comics appearing on them are long dead.
Most of the participating comics are lesser-known. They get a small fee, but they have to mold and truncate their acts to fit the format. The late Norm Macdonald, who did appear on the show, famously said the format was rigidly enforced, quipping “You couldn’t be more leashed.”
The excerpts-from-an-act framework is not ideal for stand-ups who fashion their material through buildup and rhythm. On the other hand, the comics get national TV exposure, which has become less and less available as traditional late-night shows book fewer comics for a five-minute set.
Formulaic is not an insult to Byron Allen. The formula is essential to the business plan.
Being a burgeoning media mogul means much more to him than being a star. He hosts the show, taking that “with” credit, but he doesn’t actually perform much during the episodes. No opening monologue, no pre-tapes or desk bits. Just setting up his panel and laughing along with the audience. He occasionally riffs a bit with the guest comics.
Allen deserves credit for being a host of color in late night, where that remains a much too rare achievement. He also deserves credit for something that has been just as central to his rise: He can sell—and extremely well.
Years of relationships with advertisers have provided him with a solid bench of sponsors, including high-value categories like car companies. They buy his product and get lots of impressions for the price. The same ads often run in both the original half-hour and the repeat episodes that fill the second half-hour.
Because he now also controls the second hour of CBS late night with another long-running franchise he created, Funny You Should Ask, he has a bulging slate of network TV real estate to sell—520 hours annually, by his count.
And not much of a nut to cover. Allen has confirmed that he’s spending only about $15 million for a year’s worth of the 11:35 hour on a national network.
Weeks and weeks of commercials in those hours should bring in a steady stream of revenue, even if advertisers are paying bargain rates. Diminished audience levels or not, Allen is almost surely doing nicely off his modest donation to CBS.
As for the actual show, built on comedy that is non-topical, non-political, non-offensive, and non-edgy, the business model seems to be an antonym of “must-see.” It is conceived to be acceptable, not compelling.
That part is not revolutionary. It’s a throwback to the era of “LOP TV”—least objectionable programming—which dominated network TV until the ’80s, when NBC stumbled into Cheers and Hill Street Blues, and “quality” became a selling point.
But it is definitely a major zag in a streaming era of near-endless choice for discerning tastes.
Having broken the norms of late night so efficiently, Allen has found a way to own a franchise, and all the revenue that comes from it. That is revolutionary.
Of course, revolutions sometimes fail.
Long-term survival is the test. Do Byron Allen and Comics Unleashed have the stuff to carve out a lasting place in late night?
If the show keeps making money for Allen, and CBS keeps preferring his checks to the cost and complications of building something new, that may be all it needs.
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