Dispelling Late-Night Myths

This article explores two largely untested assumptions that dominate popular and scholarly examinations of the “late-night comedy audience.” The first assumption is that young people are tuning in to late-night comedy programs instead of the news. The second assumption is that there is one monolithic “late-night audience.” Using data from both the 2004 Pew Research Center Political Communications Study and the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey, this article provides evidence that challenges these two assumptions, illustrating that young people are tuning in to late-night comedy in addition to—rather than in the place of—news and that the audiences of various late-night comedy programs have distinct sociodemographic and political profiles