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By Michaela Gordoni
Jay Leno says Joe Rogan is the new king of late-night.
“I mean, podcasts really are the new talk show. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson,” the 76-year-old former host of THE TONIGHT SHOW said.
In 2023, linear TV viewership fell below a 50% viewing share for the first time in TV history. Viewership for THE TONIGHT SHOW with Jimmy Fallon has had a decrease of -16% among total viewers, comparing Q2 2025 to Q2 2024, SirusXM Media reported.
Another thing that’s caused a lot of damage to late-night shows is commercials.
“They 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,” he explained.
Leno is completely over it.
“When I turn on late-night now, regardless of how I’m watching, if I see Jake from State Farm again…”
Related: Jay Leno Built a Community on THE TONIGHT SHOW—Here’s How
The FCC has some control over what can be said, but in podcasts, it’s all free-range.
“You really do get an unfiltered idea of what everybody thinks. So yeah, I mean, to me, that’s what’s also changed late-night,” he told Deadline.
He says young people don’t know the names of common TV channels. They use YouTube for everything.
Leno got out of the business 12 years ago. Conan O’Brien’s show ended in 2021 — now he has a podcast show with 5.4m monthly downloads. CBS canceled THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT due to unprofitability.
Meanwhile, podcast growth is currently up 49% since 2020. Besides more free speech, podcasts offer a more relaxed environment for speakers. It’s not all polished and professional — and it seems more genuine and honest from a listener’s perspective. Adult listeners say podcasts are 9x more trustworthy than traditional TV. There’s also the fact that people can listen anytime, anywhere, as opposed to tuning in at a specific time.
In 2024, YouTube said viewers watched over 400 million hours of podcasts per month through its platform.
“They’ve been tuning into podcasts similarly to how one would tune into a late-night talk show,” Kurt Wilms, the senior director of product management at YouTube, wrote in a blog post.
“We just saw in this election cycle, as an example, presidential candidates going on podcasts as a way of reaching audiences,” said Travis Dunlap, an agent at holding company William Morris Endeavor. “And so it really has become the most modern version of a talk show.”
It looks like podcasts really might ruling the media landscape.
Read Next: Tim Allen and Jay Leno Reunite on Another Sitcom
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