Jimmy Fallon and Late Night: The Future Of Broadcast TV

Jimmy Fallon stormed into the Today show studio last Wednesday morning decked out in pink Uggs and pink vest, skintight white pants, a wig and make-up. Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford and other Late Night writers crossdressing for the taping of the “Real Housewives of Late Night” sketch couldn’t hide their amusement.

In an interview the next day, Fallon says the “Real Housewives” character is his favorite to play right now, a recurring parody sketch currently in a weekly run within his Late Night show, but also thriving on the web. It’s the latest example of the dual role of Fallon’s new late night show – and another reason why his program is a model for the future of broadcast TV as a whole.

“It doesn’t hurt to try things,” Fallon tells Mediaite in an interview last Thursday in his 30 Rock office. “Especially with this show, it’s like we’re doing above and beyond what any other show is doing as far as production, viral videos.

It’s good for us because it shows people we care about this show. We want this to be the funniest show.”

Fallon’s office is an example of what the show does well – with the newest video game consoles sitting next to the nostalgia of an old school Nintendo system. It’s a formula that has turned the show’s self-contained website LateNightWithJimmyFallon.com into a hugely popular, award-winning website – and not just as a disseminator of the show’s TV content, but as a unique property. It employs three full-time bloggers who put up content both about the TV show and unrelated to it.

“We concentrate just as much on our website as we do on our show.”

Mike Shoemaker spent more than two decades with Saturday Night Live, including the eight Fallon was on the show, before joining Late Night as the program’s Executive Producer for its March launch. He also stressed the importance of the web. “I don’t know how you can do a show now and not have that strong web presence,” he tells Mediaite. “It is very second nature to us.”

Fallon put the impact of the web bluntly: “We concentrate just as much on our website as we do on our show.”

Gavin Purcell is the show’s Supervising Producer, who was brought over from the gaming network G4 for the

show’s launch. He’s been a big influence on the growing web presence as well, but identified where it starts. “The only reason that stuff exists is because Jimmy cared enough about it,” Purcell tells Mediaite. “Not only to bring somebody like me on, but also to fight for stuff and to know that this is an important part of what you do today…[The site is] the best take on how to do an internet version of a show, that isn’t just shuffling content from TV onto the internet.”

With Late Night still young, Fallon knows the web, where he connects with more than 2.3 million followers on Twitter (putting him in Twitter’s Top 20), is an important outlet. “Some people don’t even know I host the show,” he says. “The country’s a big place. So I don’t think you can really get overexposed right now. The more exposure for us the better.”

But as segments go viral, and others fade away, Purcell notes that “just because something is popular on the internet doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make good TV content, and just because something is good TV content doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make good internet content.”

And even as the impact of the web expands, Purcell knows the website doesn’t diminish

the main plan:

Ultimately, our whole goal here is to make people watch the show still. In the long run, it would be great to have the website mean as much as the show but it doesn’t mean nearly as much right now. The website does well for what it is, but the show is where everything is most important.

Which brings us, inevitably, to ratings.

>>>NEXT PAGE: Late Night ratings – and a whole new late night strategy based on “love” not “like”.