One Big Reason Youtube Can Never Replace Stephen Colbert
David Huang By Michael Hirschorn Mr. Hirschorn, the chief executive of Ish Entertainment, writes about the intersection of culture and politics New York Times The final episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” which aired Thursday night, was indeed the end of an era, but not just the era in which late-night network talk shows held a pre-eminent position in the entertainment landscape. It’s the end of something bigger: the era of corporate television, with its narrow pathways to success and its phalanx of moguls controlling who gets through. Hurray, right? Actually, we’re going to miss it more than you might think. On YouTube, a new generation of hosts is updating the talk show genre for the way we watch now: on our schedule, on our phones and in short clips. It starts with podcasting, which is now being increasingly consumed as a video product. It extends to, say, “The Adam Friedland Show,” whose host’s charm and neurosis would feel familiar to ...
