Who's laughing? LateNighter, a digital news site about late-night TV, hopes to buck media trends
The media industry is crumbling, and late-night comedy on television has less than half of the audience than it had a decade ago
NEW YORK — At first glance, Jed Rosenzweig's new venture would seem like a fool's errand: launching a digital news site during brutal economic times for the media to cover an industry that, by traditional measures, is waning in influence.
That didn't dissuade him. LateNighter, a website and newsletter that follows late-night television comedy, began operations in February.
There's been plenty to chew on since then, including Jon Stewart's return to “The Daily Show,” John Mulaney's new Netflix show, Jimmy Kimmel's feud with Donald Trump,Conan O'Brien resurfacing online and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's emergence as a comic foil.
“I haven’t come to this project from a business perspective, so much so much as a passion,” says Rosenzweig, a veteran entertainment journalist based in Portland, Oregon. “I certainly want it to succeed, and I think it will.… There’s an appetite and a void that we’re looking to fill.”
He hasn't released any metrics that would indicate how the site is catching on. LateNighter is a small operation, with only two full-time employees, and was essentially self-funded. Rosenzweig is also behind the sister website, Primetimer, and the TV Tattle subscription newsletter. His creation and subsequent sale, at an opportune time, of the home entertainment review site High Def Digest gave him some money to invest, although LateNighter will soon take paid ads.
His 13-year-old son Lem’s obsession with “Saturday Night Live” inspired LateNighter, Rosenzweig says.
A couple of influential contributors brought gravitas at the start. Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift” and one of the
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