The Tonight Show for a New Generation

What Online Engagement Means for Late Night TV

Now I must confess before I start this post, that although I am only in my mid-20s, I can barely ever stay up long enough for any late-night show. However, you can usually catch me at my desk with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning catching up on everything I missed the night before. I skim Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc. – it has become as much a ritual to me as the morning paper was to generations past.

Hence, I am part of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show generation of the digitally engaged (or obsessed).

The Tonight Show – still a crucial part of American pop culture – needed a generational change. They needed a host who appealed to younger audiences, but who also understood how these audiences consume entertainment in such different ways than in the past. Boasting 1.6M Facebook Likes, 12M Twitter followers, 2M YouTube subscribers and 1.3M Instagram followers as of last night, Jimmy Fallon’s web literacy makes him the perfect fit to attract younger audiences back to this iconic program. Fallon was able to build a successful online presence from the ground up during his five-year stint on Late Night, and he’s bringing those audiences with him to a new time slot.

Unlike any of the Tonight Show hosts before him, Jimmy Fallon’s success will not only be measured in overnight ratings, but also how the show resonates with online viewers later on. Fallon’s debut on the Tonight Show drew in 11.3M viewers, and while those numbers may overshadow what we see in terms of online views, we need to remember that these clips will continue to be watched and shared for longer than one night – for weeks, months, and years to come. For example, the #Hashtags bit with Justin Timberlake has close to 22 million views since it was posted over four months ago. And engagement does not only mean online views, but also online conversations across social channels: Mashable reported that on Monday night’s premiere, 79,900 unique accounts sent 157,600 tweets, amounting to 15.6 million Twitter impressions (retweets, favorites and replies).

As of right now, Fallon is the hottest name in late night television. Whether or not you think he’s the funniest, he is without a doubt the best positioned to capitalize on the modern media landscape, with the online knowledge to keep his fans engaged. Oh, and he also brings a killer combination of humor, musical talent, energy, and a Rolodex of celebrity friends. Whether we catch all of this live on TV or the next day on YouTube is up to us.