Later (talk show)

Later is a nightly half-hour-long late-night talk show that ran on NBC from 1988 until 2001.

Later
Also known as	Later with Bob Costas (1988–1994) Later with Greg Kinnear (1994–1996) Later with Cynthia Garrett (2000–2001) Later presents SCTV (2001–2002)
Created by	Dick Ebersol
Presented by	Bob Costas (1988–1994) Greg Kinnear (1994–1996) Guest hosts (1996–2000) Cynthia Garrett (2000–2001)[1]
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	NBC
Release	August 22, 1988 (1988-08-22) – January 18, 2001 (2001-01-18)

It typically aired for a half-hour four nights a week at 1:30 a.m. following Late Night with David Letterman from 1988 to 1993, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1993 to 2001. It was hosted by Bob Costas from 1988 to 1994, Greg Kinnear from 1994 to 1996, various guest hosts from 1996 to 2000, and finally Cynthia Garrett (the first African-American woman to host a network late-night show) from 2000 until 2001. Later was succeeded by Last Call with Carson Daly in 2002.

Nominations and awards

During Bob Costas's tenure as host, the show won the 1993 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series. It was nominated in the same category in 1992, and in the Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequences category (currently called the Main Title Design category) in 1989.

History

1988–1994: Bob Costas

To be a good guest on Later, you had to have a body of work. And I pat myself on the back here, but it also goes to the producers and researchers: show business people and athletes stay up at odd hours and they watched the show in disproportionate numbers so a lot of people who didn't do TV back then—and there was still a lot of people who didn't do a lot of TV then—did Later. Paul McCartney did and he hadn't done any US television in 10 years, Robert Duvall who hates interviews did a three-parter, Paul Simon did, as did Carole King who hardly ever does any television and is very shy, Elie Wiesel did, Martin Scorsese did Later and then showed it to his film class at NYU...
Even the athletes we had—Hank Aaron, Kareem, Jim Brown, John Wooden, Mickey Mantle—were people with significant life stories, we didn't go after the hot athletes of the moment...
Of course, there were times when on Monday you'd have a show for the time capsule and then on Tuesday, just because you had to have a show, you had someone who was in a sitcom or had a movie coming out that week. We did well over 600 shows, and I wouldn't want the bottom 100 of them to be re-released, but I think most of them held up pretty well.

Costas in 2017 on his time hosting Later.^[2][3]

In the summer of 1988, NBC decided to again start producing original programming in the 1:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday slot following an almost five-year period—ever since the late fall 1983 cancellation of NBC News Overnight—during which the time slot had been vacant and local affiliates either signed off for the night or programmed the airtime themselves. NBC sportscaster Bob Costas was brought in as the host of the new program.^[4] Created and produced by Dick Ebersol, Later represented something of a break from the typical American late night TV talk show format of the era; featuring Costas and a single guest having an intense conversation for the entire half hour—without a house band, opening monologue, studio audience or guest musical performances, close to what Tom Snyder had done on Tomorrow in a similar time slot during the 1970s and would again do on The Late Late Show in the mid-1990s.

By the time he was hired for NBC's new late-night talk show, 36-year-old Costas had been with NBC Sports for almost a decade, most prominently as the studio host of the network's NFL coverage. He had furthermore done play-by-play announcing for the network's baseball telecasts (alongside colour commentator Tony Kubek) and appeared on their NCAA basketball telecasts.^[5] Outside of NBC, since November 1986, he had been hosting Costas Coast to Coast, a nationally syndicated Sunday night two-hour interview show, reportedly carried weekly by over 150 radio stations, where he got to branch out into longer form interviews with various athletes.^[5] Additionally, since 1983, he had been making regular appearances on Late Night with David Letterman as part of the show's comedy pieces—mostly as a straight man sportscaster providing live commentary of absurd 'events' thought up by Letterman's writing staff, such as elevator or fire extinguisher races in the RCA Building and search for the Late Night baby. According to Costas, it was in fact Letterman—an admirer of his sports interviews—who had something to do with Costas getting what turned out to be the Later job by suggesting that the sportscaster could do a late night talk show to senior vice president of NBC Sports Dick Ebersol who had influence beyond NBC Sports owing to a close friendship with the president of NBC's entertainment division Brandon Tartikoff.^[2][3] Apparently, Letterman—an avid listener of Costas's Sunday night radio show—particularly liked Costas's interview with retired NFL quarterback Bart Starr and told Ebersol that "anyone who can make Bart Starr interesting for two hours deserves to have his own [television] show".^[4][6]

Ebersol initially envisioned Later as a nightly reflection on current events in sports and pop culture, however, upon realizing Costas's unwillingness to move to New York City from his family's residence in St. Louis, the executive turned it into a striped-down one-on-one interview show thus reducing its focus on current events.^[6] Later was taped in New York City at GE Building's famed Studio 8H, and occasionally in Los Angeles. Costas interviewed a single guest for 45 minutes to an hour in real time before turning the material over to editors, who condensed it down to 22 minutes plus commercials.^[7] On several occasions, an interview with a particularly noteworthy guest (examples include Paul McCartney, David Crosby, Bob Seger, Don Rickles, Jerry Lewis, David Letterman, Garry Shandling, Siskel & Ebert, Mel Brooks, Roger Corman, Robert Duvall and Martin Scorsese) was shown over multiple nights. These in-depth discussions won Costas much praise for his interviewing skills. Costas resided in St. Louis all through his run on Later, flying to New York City once per week to shoot a week worth of shows, recording all four in a single day.

Guests during the first week on air were Linda Ellerbee, Gary Coleman and Billy Crystal. Only weeks into its run, Later was preempted for NBC's presentation of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul with Costas hosting the network's Olympic late-night coverage.

Costas's duties with NBC Sports would expand from November 1990. With NBC paying US$600 million for the four-year NBA U.S. network television broadcasting rights,^[8] beginning with the 1990-91 season, Costas was announced in May 1990 as one of the network's two primary announcers on the upcoming NBA telecasts starting in November 1990.^[9] Initially set to split the play-by-play and host assignments during the regular season and playoffs with Marv Albert,^[9] Costas convinced the NBC Sports head Dick Ebersol to leave the play-by-play duties exclusively to Albert and use Costas as the studio host (as well as sideline desk host on location during playoffs).

From August 1990, Later began bringing in guest hosts to occasionally substitute for Costas: Jonathon Brandmeier, Tom Snyder, Pat Sajak, Katie Couric, Linda Ellerbee, Matt Lauer, Chris Connelly, Paul Provenza and Jeff Cesario. Guest host Snyder's March 21, 1991 interview with the 37-year-old New York City-based syndicated morning drive-time shock jock Howard Stern—who came on Later to plug his Crucified by the FCC CD boxset—gained long-term notoriety as the two, though generally remaining within the bounds of civility, nevertheless aggressively and sarcastically expressed dislike for each other by engaging in heated, testy, and uncomfortable exchanges throughout the entire interview.^[10] Though they met for the first (and last) time face to face on this occasion, former NBC late night host Snyder now doing a nightly radio show for ABC Radio and shock jock Stern heard in the New York City, Philadelphia, and D.C. radio markets had had a prior record of mutual attack on their respective media outlets that continued after their Later confrontation.^[11][12]

On Thursday, October 3, 1991, Later's hour-long three-year anniversary special aired at 11:30 p.m. on NBC, a time slot normally reserved for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Later went on 2-month summer 1992 hiatus, from late June until early September. During this period, Costas hosted NBC's primetime coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.^[13][14]

During December 1992, finishing up his ninth year as host of NBC's NFL coverage, Costas announced he would not be returning to the telecast the following season, citing a desire to do something beyond "reading the scores in three minutes during the halftime".^[15] In late January 1993, to celebrate its fifth year on the air, Later aired a special anniversary show from Los Angeles on the Saturday before that year's Super Bowl being held in Pasadena with Costas pulling double duty that weekend on Later as well as on NBC Sports' Super Bowl coverage.

During one of his last shows, Costas said personal considerations led to his decision to leave Later. He did not want to move his family to New York and felt worn out by the workload consisting of his obligations with NBC Sports and his duties on Later.^[16] Costas' last episode, an hour-long special, aired Friday, February 25, 1994. In January 2019, after leaving NBC, he expressed interest in reviving Later on another network.^[17]

After making a much-publicized switch to CBS, David Letterman (who had until June 1993 hosted Later's NBC lead-in Late Night with David Letterman) and his production company offered Costas a hosting job on the newly launched The Late Late Show, based on his performance and exposure on Later. CBS also offered Costas a correspondent role on 60 Minutes if he accepted Letterman's offer. Costas declined, however, citing his relationship with Ebersol and his desire to remain with NBC Sports. Instead, Tom Snyder would become the inaugural host of The Late Late Show, which began its run in January 1995.^[18]

1994–1996: Greg Kinnear

In late November 1993, as a consequence of Costas and NBC being in the process of finalizing his new deal that was to be based around sports, NBC unveiled the U.S. basic cable television presenter Greg Kinnear from Talk Soup on E!: Entertainment Television as the new host of Later, initially set to take over in mid-January 1994.^[19][20] Kinnear's signing with NBC came amid him negotiating with a number of other U.S. broadcasting entities, including Fox (that reportedly floated a talk show opportunity in the wake of the quick demise of The Chevy Chase Show), Disney (discussed sitcom and talk-show ideas), and CBS (which considered him for the post-Letterman slot).^[21][22][20] Reportedly competing for the Later job against over two dozen other candidates—including MTV's Chris Connelly and Rolling Stone's Bill Zehme—Kinnear ended up getting hired without a screen test with NBC additionally throwing possible prime-time specials into the deal.^[21] As per the terms of his NBC late night deal, he was allowed to continue hosting Talk Soup.^[21] With Kinnear taking over Later, NBC decided to shut down the show's production in New York City and relocate it to Los Angeles,^[19] reportedly in order to facilitate his continued appearances on Talk Soup.^[22][20] Furthermore, the network's publicly stated plan for Later was to initially keep the format Costas had previously followed—a half-hour interview each night with a single celebrity or public figure—before eventually tailoring the format to Kinnear's talents.^[19] A few weeks later, in a December 1993 New York Times interview, Kinnear stated the show will start to include short skits and comedy performances while insisting that one-on-one interviews will remain its backbone.^[22]

Originally scheduled for mid-January 1994, Kinnear's debut was subsequently pushed back by a month to February 14, 1994.^[21] Contrary to the network's earlier pronouncements, the plans for Later with Greg Kinnear to continue as a one-on-one interview show were abandoned while preparing its launch. Instead, it was decided that the upcoming program would go with a conventional U.S. late night talk show format: studio audience, scripted comedy (opening monologue and skits) as well as single guest interview—mostly contemporary TV and movie personalities promoting their projects. Right from the announcement of his stepping into the Later job on NBC, Kinnear was seen by many in the U.S. TV industry not only as a successor to Bob Costas but also a potential replacement for the novice performer Conan O'Brien whose show in the earlier 12:30am time slot on the network's late night schedule had been suffering from low ratings and poor reviews ever since its debut months prior.^[23][21] With news that Kinnear would be doing a conventional late night talk show, this speculation only intensified.^[21]

I came off Talk Soup to go to Later. I had no live audience [experience] at all. I don’t know how the hell I ended up [performing in front of a live audience]. I thought I was gonna do Bob Costas’s show with just two guys talking. And I’m not saying [me doing] that would’ve been good television, but, suddenly, I was walking out and doing a live thing, [telling jokes and going for laughs]. And it was a real adjustment for me and I wasn’t particularly great at it. I never felt like I got into a comfort zone with it.

Kinnear in 2019 on his time hosting Later.^[24]

Set to begin daily tapings at NBC Studios in Burbank, California on Valentine's Day, due to the damage to the building from the 1994 Northridge earthquake, his debut on Later took place two weeks later on February 28, 1994, with Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus as guest.^[25] Incidentally, on the same night his NBC lead-in, the struggling Late Night with Conan O'Brien, had the franchise's famous former host David Letterman on as guest.^[25] Kinnear's guests during the rest of his first week on NBC were Martin Short, Saturday Night Live's Phil Hartman, and George Carlin.

Simultaneously to his daily duties on Later and Talk Soup, Kinnear additionally pursued acting work in Hollywood. Over three months during fall 1994, as part of the casting process for the upcoming remake of Billy Wilder's 1954 romantic comedy-drama Sabrina, Kinnear had conversations with film director Sydney Pollack and producer Scott Rudin who had reportedly began considering 31-year-old television host for the part played by William Holden in the original movie solely off Kinnear's television performances on E! and NBC.^[26] The part had reportedly been previously offered to superstar Tom Cruise, the star of Pollack's 1993 box-office hit The Firm, who turned it down due to already being booked for another project.^[27] Following a screen test in October 1994, Kinnear was offered the part just before Christmas.^[27] After signing on to the big-budget motion picture, Kinnear quit Talk Soup as his contract with E! was expiring in January 1995.^[26] For their part, NBC executives decided to accommodate Kinnear by allowing him to be away from the show for months, starting in February 1995, as Kinnear's role in the film required him to shoot on location in Glen Cove, New York on Long Island's North Shore.^[26] In order to cover for his absence, he taped close to four weeks of original shows before leaving for New York City.^[26] The network had Kinnear periodically fly back to Los Angeles to tape more shows in bulk as Later with Greg Kinnear temporarily discontinued the practice of being taped daily. By late May 1995, they resorted to doing a week of reruns, then bringing in Rosie O'Donnell to guest host for a week in mid-June followed by showing reruns for four consecutive weeks.

By mid-July 1995, Kinnear resumed his daily duties on Later.

In December 1995, the movie Sabrina opened to middling reviews and disappointing box-office results. Still, the favorable exposure led to more movie offers for Kinnear and press speculation whether he would now be leaving Later.^[28] From March 1996, he was again absent from the show to shoot a movie; this time it was the comedy Dear God directed by Garry Marshall who offered Kinnear the lead role having first met him while appearing as a guest on Later.^[29] Covering for Kinnear's absence this time, NBC prepared a guest host lineup for six consecutive weeks: Jon Stewart, Alexandra Wentworth, Jay Thomas, David Alan Grier, Peter Tilden, Jeff Cesario, and George Wallace.^[30]

From late May 1996, Kinnear was off again, shooting A Smile Like Yours, while NBC lined up a new batch of Later with Great Kinnear guest hosts for the entire month—Geraldo Rivera, Eric Tunney, Richard Belzer, Bill Zehme, Jeff Ross, Marc Maron, Al Roker, and Carol Leifer—followed by another six weeks of reruns.^[30]

In September 1996, after getting cast in As Good As It Gets, Kinnear's departure from Later was announced.^[31] His last episode as host aired on October 10, 1996.

1996–2000: Guest hosts and SCTV reruns

After Kinnear's departure, NBC initially continued with the practice of having guest hosts while ostensibly looking for a permanent hosting solution to emerge. More generally, with its lead-ins The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (number one late night show since summer 1995) and Late Night with Conan O'Brien (averaging 2.6 million viewers with a strong showing among 18-to-49-year-olds) dominating U.S. late night television and thus ensuring enough spill-over and run-off viewership ratings for Later, NBC reportedly began to treat the 1:35 a.m. show as "a lab" for discovering new talent.^[32]

NBC executive Gary Considine acted as the show's executive producer. His wife Rita Sever (host of Friday Night on NBC) was the most consistent Later guest host during 1997, 1998, and early 1999. Other guest hosts came from just about any facet of public life in the United States, including the supermodel Cindy Crawford,^[33] actor Matthew Perry,^[33] actress/comedienne Lynne Koplitz, actor/comedian/radio personality Jay Thomas, rapper/actor Ice-T, stand-up comic/talk show host Jon Stewart, actress Tasha Smith, stand-up comic/actor Joe Rogan, stand-up comic George Wallace, comedian Tommy Davidson, actor Judd Nelson, actor/comedian Harland Williams, actor/comedian David Alan Grier, comedian Jim Breuer, sports personality Ahmad Rashad, actor Jerry O'Connell, actress Lisa Amsterdam, actor/comedian Michael Rapaport, cable host/VJ Cynthia Garrett, actress/comedienne Lisa Ann Walter, actress Peri Gilpin, actress/model Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, actor Daryl "Chill" Mitchell, comedienne Paula Poundstone, actor Duane Martin, and comedienne Sue Costello.

On multiple occasions between late 1998 and July 1999, instead of getting a guest host or showing a rerun, NBC resorted to playing syndicated SCTV reruns as part of Later. The practice was first implemented on December 21, 1998 and ran for almost 3 weeks until January 7, 1999 for a total of 11 episodes.^[34] It was then brought back for a week three more times—in March, April, and June/July 1999, respectively.

Several years into the rotating guest hosts strategy, to the extent that it even generated press coverage anymore, Later began to receive criticism over what many saw as creative neglect.^[35][32] The show's executive producer Considine (working for NBC's in-house production arm NBC Studios, along with a further advisory role on Leno's Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live and O'Brien's Late Night) was accused of conflict of interest over Later featuring his wife Sever as the most frequent guest host.^[32] Considine defended his position by stating that though he makes hosting recommendations, he is "absolutely not involved in picking the hosts" before offering a claim that in the five weeks Sever hosted Later during the 1998-99 season ratings were up 15% to 20% among 18-to-49-year-olds and that the final decision on Sever's Later run had fallen to NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer who left the network in June 1999.^[32]

What has become of Later by 1999 was referred to by New York Post's Austin Smith as a "parade of B-list models, comedians and actors while NBC tries for years to decide what to do with the program".^[35] The show's seemingly low-priority treatment by NBC was even lampooned on-air by the host of its lead-in, Conan O'Brien, who, during a June 1999 Late Night appearance by Later's former host Bob Costas, likened Later's guest host selection process to "jury duty out in L.A." where individuals selected "have to ask not to be made a host".^[32] Still, thanks to its strong NBC late-night lead-ins, Later had been posting solid ratings, averaging 1.4 million total viewers and even regularly attracting more coveted 18-to-49-year-old viewers than Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn an hour earlier on CBS.^[32]

With management changes at NBC, Garth Ancier becoming the new president of NBC Entertainment and Scott Sassa as new NBC West Coast president in Ohlmeyer's place, Later went on summer 1999 hiatus. From September 1999, NBC renewed efforts to find a permanent host by initially giving more guest host spots to female comics.^[32]

2000–2001: Cynthia Garrett

In December 1999, NBC issued a press release announcing former VH1 VJ Cynthia Garrett, who had guest hosted Later twice that month, as its permanent host.^[36] The fact that her guest-hosting stints attracted the show's largest audience in nine months in the key adult 18-49 demographic was NBC's main consideration in hiring Garrett on a permanent basis.^[37][38] Signing a one-year deal with the network,^[39] Garrett debuted on January 31, 2000 by interviewing current Oscar nominee for best supporting actor Michael Clarke Duncan,^[35] thus becoming the very first African American woman to host her own network late-night show in the United States.^[40] For the rest of her debut week, Garrett welcomed Reba McEntire and Lenny Kravitz who was announced in the press as "Garrett's brother"^[39][41] although it would eventually be revealed the two are not blood relatives but lifelong friends who grew up together in New York City.^[38] Returning to the show's initial Bob Costas-led one-on-one interview format, over the coming months Garrett would interview guests such as Laurence Fishburne, Joe Montana, Angela Bassett, Leah Remini, Magic Johnson, Tipper Gore, and Tommy Hilfiger. The production of Later remained in Los Angeles from NBC Studios in Burbank, with single mother Garrett spending two days a week taping a week worth of shows before flaying back to her hometown New York City to work on VH1 shows and to be with her 7-year-old son.^[39][42]

Averaging 1.3 million viewers since October 2000, the program was canceled in December with the final episode airing on January 18, 2001 just as Garrett's deal with the network expired.^[1][38] Explaining the decision not to renew Later with Cynthia Garrett, president of NBC Studios Ted Harbert stated the network "wants to develop a comedy show [in the 1:30 a.m. time slot]" because it sees the time period as a "laboratory to experiment with an idea or a personality that could perhaps find its way to primetime".^[43] Garrett became an on-air personality for the then-new TV Guide Channel. Around this time, NBC began to negotiate with Carson Daly to take over the Later timeslot, but this would not happen for well over a year.

2001–2002: Later presents SCTV

Following the end of Later, the time slot was used for time- and content-edited repeats of the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV, a show which had previously aired on NBC from 1981 through 1983. A new voice-over introduction by Rita Sever presented the program as "Later presents...SCTV", but the series was otherwise identical to the syndicated SCTV repeats that had been airing for years.

In 2001, NBC announced that MTV VJ Carson Daly would be the new host of Later. However, when Daly took over the time slot in January 2002, the Later name was retired, and the show went on the air as Last Call with Carson Daly, a show that would run in several iterations until September 2019, when it was replaced with A Little Late with Lilly Singh. This show ran until June 3, 2021, at which point NBC gave the former Later timeslot back to its affiliates.

See also

• List of Later with Bob Costas episodes
• List of late-night American network TV programs