After a month-long hiatus, After Midnight is back with new episodes this week. Tuesday’s Season 2 premiere will also be the show’s first with a brand-new co-showrunner.
As Deadline first reported late Friday, J.D. Amato has joined Jack Martin as co-showrunner. (Martin was paired with Eric Pierce on the CBS late-night show’s first season. Pierce left the show in July.)
Amato, whose past credits include Magic For Humans on Netflix and The President Show on Comedy Central, is no stranger to late night. Most recently, he served as executive producer on the fourth season of Desus & Mero on Showtime. Before that, he was an executive producer on The Chris Gethard Show. He also put in a short stint at Apple TV+’s The Problem with Jon Stewart.
The new co-showrunner’s background in non-traditional late-night programming would seem to make him a promising fit for After Midnight as it continues to forge its own path on CBS.
The comedy panel show bears little resemblance to its predecessor, The Late Late Show with James Corden (or any other network late-night show)—and that’s by design. The show was launched as something of an experiment this past January in the face of changing viewer habits that have strained the economics of producing a traditional late-night show.
Just nine months in, After Midnight is off a strong start. Produced on a relative shoestring, the show has been competitive in its timeslot, where it attracts a younger, more advertiser-friendly audience, a rarity these days on broadcast television. Creatively, it’s also proven adept at course correction, including some mid-season format tweaks last year that helped showcase the comedic prowess of its host, Taylor Tomlinson.
It remains to be seen what (if any) changes are in store for After Midnight as it begins it second season this week, but we’ll be watching.
