Later (talk show)

Later was a nightly half hour-long talk show that ran on NBC from 1988 until 2001. Later typically aired for half an hour following The Tonight Show and its succeeding program, Late Night with David Letterman (1988–1993) or Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993–2001).

Nominations and awards

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

The Bob Costas era

Bob Costas hosted Later from 1988–1994. This show was something of a break from the typical TV talk show format of the era, featuring Costas and a single guest having a conversation for the entire half hour, without a band, opening monologue or studio audience. On several occasions, Costas held the guest over for multiple nights, and these in-depth discussions won Costas much praise for his interviewing skills. Guests during his first week were Linda Ellerbee and Billy Crystal. Costas occasionally used guest hosts including Chicago DJ Jonathon Brandmeier and Tom Snyder. Snyder's interview with Howard Stern in 1991 was riveting television as host and guest, while remaining cordial on-air, still expressed their dislike for each other as Stern continually tried to plug his Crucified by the FCC CD boxset.

Under Greg Kinnear and Cynthia Garrett

Following Costas' departure, the show became a much more conventional talk show, hosted first by Greg Kinnear. After Kinnear's departure for a film career in 1996, the network struggled to find a replacement host, and until 1998, the program featured a 'guest host of the week' format which was heavily dependent on performances by stand-up comedians, somewhat matching the format of the time of Friday Night, which aired instead of Later on that evening. Friday Night host Rita Sever was the most consistent guest host during this period of time.

The program finally settled on Cynthia Garrett as a host in 1998. The show then took on a low-budget and low-profile feel through those two years, featuring smaller profile guests that wouldn't usually appear on the pre-1:35am talk shows, and the program was little promoted, even within NBC's promotional claims of being America's Late Night Leader, with some stations even pre-empting it completely in order to better profit from the low-rated half-hour with their own programming (i.e. infomercials). Some episodes of the series even took place without a studio audience. Garrett left the program in 2000 after agreeing to become an on-air personality for the then-new TV Guide Channel, likely as NBC began to negotiate with Carson Daly to take the Later timeslot, as he eventually would in 2001, and due to ratings concerns.

SCTV and Last Call with Carson Daly

Following Garrett's departure in 2000, the time slot was used for edited repeats of the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV with Rita Sever as the show's announcer. In 2002, NBC announced that MTV VJ Carson Daly would be the new host of Later. When Carson took over in January 2002, the show was renamed Last Call with Carson Daly.