He may not have been officially fired or even aggressively pushed out, but Craig Ferguson was most definitely a victim of David Letterman’s decision to retire. With CBS electing to go in a different direction, he decided to gracefully walk out the door too. Fortunately for fans, that doesn’t mean he’s done with the talk show hosting game. In fact, he’s apparently in talks to pick right up where he left off.
According to Variety, Craig Ferguson is already in talks with Tribune Media. The potential pact would put him in at least 42% of the United States. In addition, the company will reportedly try and meet with various stations in order to potentially syndicate the content and get him on the air throughout the rest of the country.
That might sound like a tall order, but it’s not impossible, particularly because of the timeslot in question. As opposed to the late night show, or late late night show, he handled before, Ferguson’s proposed new effort would apparently run at 7 PM, which would put him in competition with game shows like Wheel Of Fortune and Jeopardy and gossip programs like Extra and Entertainment Weekly. With the right pitch, someone may want to run this as counter-programming.
According to Variety, the idea would be to pair Craig Ferguson’s new show, now a half an hour, alongside a well-performing comedy re-run from Big Bang Theory or something along those lines.
Craig Ferguson is an extremely unique talent. His approach to late night television was completely different than the spin anyone else put on the genre. As such, no one has any idea what the hell he might do with a 7 PM talk show. The proposed offering is being described as mixing interviews with sketches, but exactly how much time either one would get is unclear. In addition, it’s unclear whether Ferguson would try to bring over any of his bits from The Late Late Show, though with showrunner Michael Naidus expected to follow him over from CBS, it’s likely there will be a fair amount of carryover.
Craig Ferguson was never the type of guy to get top billing at 11:35. I’m not sure if that was ever his goal, but it wasn’t going to happen. Still, he’s engaging enough and professional enough that he needs to continue being famous. Hopefully, this potential opportunity is exactly what he needs.
