While some analysts have questioned the ongoing economic viability of broacast-TV late night shows amid ongoing declines in linear viewing, new data from Tubular Labs suggests that these shows are still thriving on social media and that their future may lie in adopting a “social media-first” strategy.
Tubular reported that since the start of 2025, late-night broadcast shows like “Saturday Night Live,“ “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Late Night With Seth Meyers” and “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” have combined for more than 17 billion views across social video platforms. Fifty-six different videos from late-night TV had at least 25 million views.
Declines in late night TV audiences has been cited as a major factor in the cancellation of CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” after published reports citing anonymous sources claimed the show was losing $40 million or more a year.
Tubular’s data seems to offer a counter-narrative to that view. It shows audiences are gravitating towards on-demand monologues and viral segments they can consume and share on their own time, instead of staying up late to watch live.
Of the most-watched social videos from these shows, Tubular reported, several were uploaded in October, including this Jimmy Fallon clip that racked up 51.6 million views on TikTok in just a few days after its release.
"SNL", despite questions of relevance over the last decade as streaming comedy grows, accounts for 14 videos of 25 million-plus views on its own. That included the top late-night video of the year: a skit featuring Pete Davidson and Timothée Chalamet that racked up over 63 million views, the researchers reported.
That might indicate these shows should be adopting a social-media first strategy for their future, given that these videos have massive reach, and even better opportunities for audience targeting than traditional TV, Tubular Labs reported.
The researchers also stressed that when “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to the air in September, much was made about its TV ratings. Yet, as YouTube itself pointed out in the immediate aftermath, the bigger number was actually around Kimmel’s return monologue video on the platform. That clip has 22.7 million views, and is Kimmel’s most-seen video of 2025.
