Is It Lights Out for Late Night?

Plus, the bullish move to market milk to Gen-Z

July 25, 2025

Welcome to The TV Room. Your weekly digest of television, streaming, and digital media insights that matter.

This week we're covering:

  • 🌙 Late Night’s Last Stand

  • 🥉 Netflix Breaks Into Nielsen’s Top Ranks

  • 🎥 Creative Spotlight: Cheetos: “Have You Seen Thing?”

  • 🥛 Connect With Gen-Z Through…Dairy?

Late-Night TV is Going Dark

The late-night TV landscape is turning into a graveyard shift, as CBS announced this week that Stephen Colbert's Late Show will end in 2026.

But while online speculation points to political motivations, the numbers tell a more straightforward story of format-wide decline.

An industry on the ropes

  • Viewership has plummeted from nearly 4 million nightly viewers in 2015 to just 2.5 million for Colbert's top-rated Late Show in the 2024-2025 season

  • Combined ad revenue for the three major late-night shows dropped by half, from $404 million in 2018 to around $200 million in 2024, with Colbert's show specifically seeing a 42% decline to $70 million

  • The Late Show was costing the network roughly $40 million annually

So, what's killing late night?

  • Linear TV's collapse: Streaming officially surpassed cable and broadcast combined in May 2025, capturing 46% of viewership versus traditional TV's 41.9% in June.

  • Unsustainable economics: Host salaries exceed $10 million annually while networks receive diminishing returns. NBC already cut The Tonight Show from five to four days weekly to save costs.

  • Digital competition: YouTube claims 12.8% of all TV viewing, while TikTok delivers the news, celebrity content, and comedy sketches viewers once tuned in for.

Late night shows have tried adapting by pushing social media clips, with The Tonight Show reporting 55% year-over-year growth in social views. But this strategy backfires on linear viewership as audiences no longer need to watch full episodes.

Colbert's cancellation could set a precedent for similar moves at ABC and NBC, potentially ending a format that has changed little since Steve Allen introduced the talk show desk in the 1950s.

Read More:

TV Industry Updates

  • AI audit trail: After a scandal-ridden Cannes Lions, major awards shows like The One Show and Clio Awards moved to tighten submission rules.

  • Olympic overhaul: Olympic Broadcasting Services unveiled plans to run the 2028 LA Games on a fully IP- and IT-based infrastructure.

  • Paramount retools: Paramount reviewed its international pay-TV strategy as it weighs office closures in Africa and trims its cable channel footprint abroad.

  • Netflix surges: Netflix broke into Nielsen’s top three media distributors, capturing 8.3% of June TV usage and posting a 13.5% viewership spike.

  • Fox cashes in: Fox wrapped its 2025-26 upfront with over $2 billion in sports ad commitments and double-digit growth across news and entertainment.

  • Merger under scrutiny: Congress opened an investigation into whether Skydance CEO David Ellison made illegal arrangements with President Trump.

Creative Spotlight: Cheetos: “Have You Seen Thing?”

Cheetos teamed up with Netflix’s “Wednesday” to launch a chaotic campaign starring Thing, the show’s disembodied hand, as its new spokeshand.

The Details:

  • Thing tracked cheetle (Cheetos’ signature orange dust) across Times Square, leaving graffiti and fingerprints on billboards for other brands.

  • Out-of-home activations extended the narrative into the real world with Thing’s trail appearing on taxis, sidewalks, and even a Statue of Liberty replica.

  • The campaign supported the launch of a limited-edition snack, Flamin’ Hot Fiery Skulls, featuring skull-shaped puffs and packaging inspired by Wednesday.

What We Loved: Turning a silent horror sidekick into a gleeful vandal gave Cheetos a sharp, culture-savvy edge that landed perfectly with Gen Z fans of both snacks and streaming.

Marketing Mix

  • Back-to-it, not just back-to-school: JCPenney expanded its “Yes, JCPenney” platform with a campaign that reframes the season as a reset for everyone.

  • Milk meets metaverse: Dairy Max launched a new Fortnite game, Diner Tycoon, to connect Gen-Z with dairy through gameplay.

  • Cookies go to the Upside Down: Chips Ahoy teamed with “Stranger Things” for an AR game and limited-edition cookie drop.

  • Publicis stays bullish: The holding company posted 5.4% organic growth in H1, buoyed by wins like Coca-Cola’s North American media account.

  • Old-school charm, new fizz: Nestlé Waters proved that nostalgia still sells with a Cannes-winning Sopranos ad for Sanpellegrino CIAO!, its new sparkling water.

  • Cash App goes cinematic: Cash App dropped a full-length branded short film starring Timothée Chalamet, who finds financial freedom through the app.