James Hirsen went into comedy-cop mode for his Jan. 8 Newsmax column:
Laughter is apparently built into our DNA, because I recently saw an ultrasound of a pre-born baby in full smile mode.
I don’t know what the little guy thought was so funny, but it’s a pretty sure bet he wasn’t listening to one of TV’s late-night comedy shows. They stopped delivering laughs a long time ago.
It all started when late-night hosts began moving further and further to the political left. Then so many of the jokes went woke. And finally Big Censorship came in with a knockout punch.
It’s no wonder that over the past several years late-night revenues have plummeted. Shows on CBS, NBC and ABC are down significantly from five years prior, and network executives have even cut back on programming.
The following info may shed some light on what appears to be a major contributing factor in the demise of late-night humor.
Yep, he’s mad that late-night shows don’t make fun of liberals enough. He then called on the other comedy cops for backup:
The problem is the icing on the cake tastes rotten to a huge segment of viewing audiences.
Some eye-opening research underscores the extreme partisanship that is embedded within late-night television programming.
The Media Research Center (MRC) released some compelling data, which were obtained during the time period between Labor Day and the Monday night that preceded Election Day of 2022.
Results of the study indicated that there had been 47 left-leaning guests who had appeared on late-night shows.
During this same time period, not a single conservative-leaning guest was booked to appear on the late-night shows.
[…]A study recently conducted by the MRC provides additional evidence of the political bias that exists on the part of late-night television hosts and writers.
The MRC study analyzed the comedic content contained within the programming of the major late-night shows, which included ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” and up until the show stopped airing in April 2023 “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”
An extraordinary 81% of the comedic material contained within the programming was aimed directly at conservative-leaning public figures.
Note what’s missing from that programming list: Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld — a frequent MRC omission. Hirsen didn’t mention Gutfeld anywhere else in his column either.
Hirsen concluded by arguing that liberal jokes aren’t funny (though millions of Americans think otherwise):
Late night shows used to be an American staple. Now at least half the country has tuned out because folks are tired of being the butt of old worn-out unfunny mediocre jokes.
Try poking at both sides and you just might bring back the funny.
Our babies-in-waiting are already primed to laugh.
Hirsen would never accuse Gutfeld of excluding “half the country” because of his unfunny right-wing humor (which we can also assume is mediocre, something Hirsen would never concede because apparently all right-wing humor is utterly brilliant).