Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff - Inside Late Night: Nick Bernstein

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Nick Bernstein spent more than two decades helping shape late night from behind the scenes at NBC and CBS. He joins Mark Malkoff to share behind the scenes stories of working with Taylor Tomlinson and James Corden, navigating the Leno-Conan transition, and what he learned from Rick Ludwin and Lorne Michaels.

From late-nighter.com, it's Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff. Welcome to Inside Late Night with Mark Malkoff. Today on Late Nider, we talked to Nick Bernstein about his years and late night, working for NBC and CBS. Let's do it. Nick Bernstein, nice to see you. Great to see you. So in 2014, CPS announced you.

That December, they announced that you were going to be joining the family. You've done 11 years at NBC. You were a page in 1999. Your late night experience is unbelievable the number of years. I mean, I think Rick Ludwin, your mentor who you worked for, and he was on the Carson podcast, 29 years, I believe, at NBC. But, I mean, you have almost equaled Rick in terms of your late night experience, correct? I've literally never thought about that.

That's an insane thing to even think about. But I guess we're pretty close. Yeah, so Nina Tassler, they introduce you that you were going to be coming into the CBS family, and James Corden is going to be taking over for the late, late show. And how long did it take for you to be on camera on the light show? Because this gets to be the point where people were coming up to you in public, freaking out, wanting photos with you. What was the exact timeline? Well, that's a slight exaggeration, I think. I'm not sure people. freaked out seeing me, but they did recognize me. It was a pretty long time. I mean, it all came

about because I was, I'm always been a behind the scenes person. I've always been more than happy to be an exec and be around the shows and help contribute on my end where I could. I never wanted to be on camera. I don't even really want to be on this camera. You were vice president of late night program in West Coast and you're at TV, at C.S. CBS Television City. And you were announced that December of 2014. And then James Corden is going to be starting. I think that maybe was it that March, something like that.

So you have all these months leading up with him. And then you become a personality when during that? So I don't get on the camera. And almost none of us do until the COVID era. So basically what happened on the Liliate show, was like on many shows, we couldn't bring an audience in. We couldn't have an audience about like four months into COVID. CBS allowed James to come back into the studio.

So he had been doing a show from the garage, from his garage. And then he moved back into the studio. The only people who were allowed in there were members of the staff who also had to get tested and go through all the process that we had to back then. slowly but surely throughout those months more people from the staff were allowed back onto the tv city lot it took me until about may of 2021 to do that and any new person coming in they were like bring them on because james ended up doing something that was really smart and fun uh he didn't do a monologue that was traditional anymore where he would stand in front of the people who wrote it and who

knew it already. It wasn't a traditional audience, so he would sit from the desk, he had his monologue that he could go to. He had people that wrote a bunch of jokes for him based on what was happening in the day, and then it would just turn into whatever he

wanted to talk about with whoever was out there, and I ended up being one of those people. And he would cut this down. A lot of times that you would film more than we would actually get broadcast, correct? Yeah, I mean, we used to joke sometimes in the booth or with the people in the booth that we would shoot our act one and it would be the length of the actual episode.

It went really, really well, though. I mean, I can see why because, I mean, yeah, the two of you. So originally they were going to seat you at the bar, but then they come up with this joke. Do you know that the joke that they have this plan that they're going to take a high chair and make it progressively, they're going to go with it and make it taller throughout the week? My recollection of it is that they had joked about putting me at the bar, and I thought just that was a joke. And then they put me there, and then as I was there, on day one,

they were like, we're going to raise it up higher and higher throughout the week. And I thought that was a joke until I showed up the next day and saw how much higher my seat was. And by Wednesday and Thursday literally, I was almost at the same level as the lights. the studio lights. And there was a point that is true where I told the CBS lawyer at the time I'm like, has anyone actually vetted this?

Should I be signing something? Because this doesn't actually seem that safe. And it was like the next day they're like, yeah, you probably should have. I'm like, well, I already did it. It's too late. And then it was all just like fun and games. And it was a very fun and informative moments. How quickly did you have to join after?

And then obviously you're on-camera talent. So how was that negotiated? If any, was it negotiated? No, it was not a negotiation. I mean, it's once again, very nice of you to consider me as talent in that way. The way that we basically structured it and put it was if I was in the studio, I just happened to be there. And if he spoke to me or whatever that was,

I didn't consider that any type of me acting. It was just conversation going on. It was impromptu. It was improvised. If they ever put me in an actual bit where I was taken away from my day to day. And sometimes they would put me in a sketch or have me do literally like an integration, like a commercial integration. then I would get just the regular daily minimum

that anyone who would be a sketch performer would get. Was it an inside joke that we're going to see what Nick is going to do if he's going to say no to anything? I mean, they had you lip sync to a Bell Biv-Div-V-Devau song. Was there anything that you said no to? That's... I tried to be as open as possible. I'm sure I said no to something.

I'm not sure I remember anything very specifically. It was like, this is the way a conversation would go. One of the producers would call and be like, hey, Dwayne Wade, the NBA star is going to be on the show. Do you want to play basketball with Dwayne? And I would say, oh my God, that's incredible. I would love to do something like that. I'm a huge basketball fan.

I think he's great. And they would say, that's awesome. I'm really glad you're doing this. You're going to be the backboard. So we're going to strap me a backboard on you. We're going to lift you up into the rafters. And then they're going to shoot baskets on you. And I was like, that, I hate you guys.

But I'm not going to say no at that point. And also, like, I recognize in the same way that you do, if I was 17 and watching those shows, I would be so excited to watch this behind the scenes thing now become front stage and have them mess with the people who are behind the seats. Do you know several days in advance or is the day of that we're going to take Nick, we're going to dress you up as a jockey and we're going to have you sit on a plastic horse for the ever. episode. That once again, it's one of those things that started as like, I wasn't sure they were serious about this.

And I didn't know if they were going to actually come through and make me do it. But when I did agree to do that, they did bring clothes for me to try on to make sure that they fit correctly. And then I don't think they gave me a whole lot of time in between to think about whether or not I actually wanted to do this or it was a good idea. I just thought like, this is a good bit. This is a funny bit. Let me, let me feed that foil for them.

And then the thing I didn't know is that they, while I was dressed as a Jackie, I didn't know and no one told me that they had a giant plastic horse that I was going to also be sitting on. and then because they found it so funny after the first act, they were like, sorry, do you mind sitting on it for the entire show? Which is a very long time on a very uncomfortable piece of setting. It was so chermint. How often would they have cue cards or writers that would give you lines,

or was it just all really back and forth, just improv and ad lib? For like during the first act? Yeah. I mean, I figured it was all probably ad, But I didn't know if they would ever, sometimes in television and late night, they make it look like everything is made up in the moment. But things are more scripted than people think. My guess is it was just you got back and forth. And it was no. I never, I never got lines. Sorry. I never got lines. That's what I was asking. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. That's why I think it probably why it worked. I mean, early Conan, for example, him and Andy were reading up a cue cards for their banter. I was going to the show and I'm like, I can't believe these. Andy. How is your word? weekend well Conan and I'm like oh man luckily like about a year into it or whatever they had chemistry and they could do that but you can't force that but that's great to hear yeah I mean that's

the other thing that's kind of fun is that like just to your point there like when I wasn't put on camera because I'm great on camera or something I was put on camera out of almost like the necessity for new toys to play with you know and so like the things that worked between any of us that were on camera and being there is we all knew it. each other so well by that point. We were five years, six years in. And so, like, we all had natural chemistry. And you literally did forget the cameras were on. It was just people talking. And after a show, you would kind of look at your friends on set and be like, what did I say today? What? But you also knew you were going to be protected because the people who were editing the show

and behind scenes, like, they just, they knew how to get the best out of us for air also. Would you be around ever for the carpool karaoke's? I never was in one of the like follow cars for a carpool. The only one that was a carpool adjacent that I was there for was when we, I went up to to Oakland, San Francisco to shoot something with, to be there for the shoot with Steph Curry when James did a bit with Steph Curry. And while they were in there, sang some Moana songs, I think, or Frozen songs, one of those.

So I got to see it there where, once again, James told Steph while I was in the follow car that there's somebody who they brought along who was obsessed with him, which I do love basketball. And I was also wearing curry sneakers for the set visit. But as soon as I got out of the car, they pointed me out. And the first thing I had to say to NBA legend, Steph Curry is, I'm not obsessed with you. So this is, I mean, you know, five years before anything like that would happen on a camera. I absolutely love this.

Whose idea was it? Was it the producers, Ben Winston? Was it your idea that we, you know, we have Justin Bieber who did carpool karaoke. We're going to save this segment until for David Letterman's final episode, be that strategic, which was a really smart thing. I mean, you have the biggest audience that are going to be tuning in for years for Letterman. We're going to save this big bit for then. How did that come about? So, not my proudest moment.

I wasn't sure that was a great idea to put Bieber Carpool in the episode that would air after the Letterman finale. And the reason I felt like that, and I was wrong, and I said it immediately. To Ben and James and Rob Crabb, those were the three guys that would have been far and away the ones who said this is what we're going to do. I wasn't sure that the audience who was watching Letterman that had a nostalgia coursing through their veins and watching this talent say goodbye was going to be prepped and wanting to watch such a young performers. singing their songs. I wasn't sure if that was going to connect correctly. Within two weeks, it became like a 60 million viewed YouTube sensation. And of course it did. It was great. I wasn't saying don't put it there because it wasn't a terrific piece of content. I was just saying I wasn't sure those things would connect. Why don't you put it on the Monday

before or the Tuesday before? Like it doesn't have to necessarily be there. But I was wrong. I really love the with James Corden was really good to the stand-up comedians. You know, Johnny Carson a lot of times when it was somebody that was debut when he would say to the audience, coming back from commercial, I'm glad you're in a good mood, which basically said, oh, we're in a good mood, we're going to laugh. And I believe you told me that James before they would come back on air would tell the audience before the comedian would be announced, would you please be really good for them and laugh? Is that what happened? That was my recollection.

Yeah, it was very similar to that. I mean, he would preface the audience by saying, like, it's four in the afternoon or whatever time of day it was. This is not the time you would normally be seeing stand-up, but we have someone here who we really believe in. We think they're great. We want you to treat them with the utmost respect. We want you to laugh for them and, like, really support them. And so, like, you got the sense that, like, right away, the crowd was behind them. And they were coming to, they're coming into a situation where they,

they were already warmed up and you know you can be in a situation and I'm you of course know this where you go to a comedy club uh you're going into a room where people don't necessarily know you or who you are and everyone sort of like cross armed and be like all right show me what you got but that was not the feeling when you walked into that um into the studio for um to do to do it to do it stand-up on cordon um i thought it was really like it was a very smart way to do it and i think that like almost everybody walked out of that situation with five minutes so they could be incredibly proud of and put up on their own socials. Would James take questions from the audience at all during commercials or any interaction?

He wouldn't do a warm up before the show, correct? No, James didn't do warm up before the show, but he often took questions in between acts. He really enjoyed doing that. Even when he would do like a 20 or 30 minute act one that we would obviously cut down for error, he might still take questions from the audience and talk to people. He just had a real looseness about him, and I think people, he had an approachability, obviously, still does. But it allowed, I think, people to really feel like they were absolutely a part of the show.

And then when they get to know so much of the show, they have very specific questions. Like what? Do you remember maybe a few that stand out of questions for James? Well, they would ask about, like, I don't know. Is this going to sound crazy out of context? There was a whole, like, runner about whether or not we were going to take the entire show on a cruise. And it lasted for weeks, and then it went away. But, like, nine months later, people would ask us when we're going to do the cruise.

If they can join us on the cruise, they would ask, like, Pete the camera guy questions very specifically about, like, where did the fins up come from? And, like, they just knew so many of us that some of the questions were for James and some of them ended up being for, like, any number of those people who were, who were part of the crew. I absolutely love that. You know, my wife, Christine, and I, myself, we went to Broadway and we saw James Corden on Broadway, the same show that Leslie Moonvis saw

and fell on love with Corden. And, you know, he was really unknown to U.S. audiences, and it was Moonbiz's idea to give James the late show. If James Corden didn't say yes, do you know now who maybe one or two other names that Moonbez was thinking? if Gordon had turned down the job? That's a great question.

That never came up with me. There was never any other name that was floated or talked about in advance. I mean, when I came in, I came with them having already made that decision to hire James and bring them on. And it was one of those things where, like, once that was set, that was the future going forward. and because I think also, quite frankly, because it was a rocket. It just started with bits that worked from the beginning and things that people knew. And so, like, there was never any real, like, conversation about that in between. I had never seen somebody that did a late night show like this that was not familiar to an audience being good right away.

I mean, Dave Letterman, when he did his 1230 show at NBC, had all this year's guest hosting for Johnny, Carson, he had a morning show, but for someone that had never done that, and American audiences didn't know who he was, I couldn't believe and tell me what your thoughts were going in. Normally, there's a huge adjustment. It takes a year or so for the performer to get really comfortable with the audience. He was good from the first moment, in my opinion, and that is just so rare. Yeah, I had a similar opinion to you as how long it takes to get these shows.

off the ground, how long it takes somebody to get comfortable to that space and the rhythm. And it doesn't matter if it's your first time or if it is your first time in a new space, like you often need time to figure out what you like about it. And I really credit to Ben and to Rob and James. Those three were like, we don't have that time. Nobody has six months to give it a chance. And so let's let's not make them wait. Like we're going to go balls out from the very beginning with bits with people that you know,

that you are like household names. We're going to get into full-on sketches, massive sketches with them. We're going to do bits that travel internationally. I'm going to be able to play that stranger in a strange land. comedy for for all it's worth being in LA for the first time, being in America for the first time and it's the like things that you don't know

that you don't know in a good way we're going to do and so many of them worked and so it's just sort of I think allowed them the confidence and ability to keep on pushing and so they didn't really rest on their laurels I would say for like I mean, pretty much the entirety of the run,

but certainly for the first year plus, it was new, new, new, let's keep doing it. And even though the lifeblood of late night has been recurring bits, that combination of recurring bits, and can we do something new that becomes a recurring bit, it was like, if our recurring bit is caro-cariochi within the largest, most massive celebrities

and artists that you can know, like that never feels, at least it didn't to me. It didn't feel old. It wasn't like this again. This again, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, like a death. Stryson, it was unbelievable. I can't believe how many intelligent people I've talked to in the industry believe. I think it may be in one journalist wrote that Gordon's show is losing money and that's why it was canceled, which is not true.

There's no truth in that whatsoever. Why do you think that that myth is out there? and what actually did happen. To my knowledge, it was profitable. And Gordon, you know, he has a family. I mean, it's an exhausting, exhausting job just felt that it was time to move on. It was, yeah, I mean, it wasn't about, it wasn't a profitability conversation at that point. I mean, look, maybe it comes up now more because that's become a much bigger conversation in late night over the last three years.

but Gordon came from a point where he didn't grow up and he wasn't reared on these late night shows and these sort of iconic figures that ended up doing this for 20, 30 years. He has, as you know, just having seen him on Broadway before he started this, like a wealth of different things he wants to do

with his career in his life. And he also, I think, really post-COVID, not to put words in his mouth, but you're separated from your family, not just by, you know, by an incredibly large distance. And if you want your family to be raised with knowing your parents and them knowing their grandparents, like there's only really one way to do that. And so I think he had in mind for quite a while that he was always going to move back to the UK. I don't think he looks back with anything but fondness. on the show that we made with the Late Late Show.

And it was really like one of the great ways to leave if there's such a thing. It's on your own terms, your own timetable with nothing but a tremendous amount of respect for the place you worked and the people you work with. All the peers, yeah, come in out. Any point during when you were with Gordon, was there any talk with in CBS? to develop a 130 show. You know, NBC had Bob Costas on at 130, and then it went to, later went to some other people.

Was there any conversation? If so, who were some of the talent that was thought of, if they were going to do a show? Well, I brought it up with them. And it was probably just pre-COVID. It was probably in that very early 2020, is just the idea of like, could I pitch this to as a concept of people? Are we successful enough that we, it wasn't that are we successful enough?

I should say this. We were doing well. We were bringing ad dollars and integrations into a space at 1230 that we thought like maybe there is more there. To do another half hour to add another exciting piece of talent to draw. both a quirkier group of comedians and actors and whatnot onto the into that space to play more like a cable late night show might and do it in an incredibly like low cost efficient way. So it was like me pitching my bosses, me pitching the affiliates and just. with the most general concept.

It never got to a point where we were considering making a pilot, putting EPs together. It was very, very early stages that ultimately, when COVID hit and then when, when you look at what are the, essentials and non-essentials for a broadcast. A new show at 1.30 in the morning was never really an essential. And so it was, do I have, like, is this a playground that I could sort of be in the space with?

So, like, I will tell you, like, people that I was excited about and wanting to talk to my bosses with were people like Josh Johnson, who ends up becoming a daily show correspondent. But that's the type of person where I was like, he had already started, I think, his podcast. and I knew him as a stand-up, and I was like, this is the type of person, I think, would be a really exciting, fun voice to add to our, like, essentially, like, murderers row of late-night hosts. Yeah, he would have been amazing.

He's doing so well at the Daily Show, huge future ahead. After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson premieres in January of 2024. Before Taylor was announced, before the after midnight was announced, what were some of the other conversations that were had about what we can do with this? Was there any talk about keeping the late late show and who would the other host might be?

What were the conversations? There were like, we, the biggest conversation was that the network really wanted to do something that felt completely different from what had been there up until that moment. And so they didn't want to do

anything that felt traditional. So they didn't really want to create a late laid show with insert host here format anymore. They just thought that that was the way forward in terms of standing out sticking out, keeping costs reasonable and maybe injecting a different type of life into that space. And so any pitch that we would sort of receive in that world felt like it was sort of a hybrid

combination of ultimately like someone pitching a monologue, some type of topical games, and then like a game show element to it and maybe some like remotes. And so there wasn't any other pitch that we got was sort of like an amalgam of all the things that sort of have been in the space. I don't really recall at this point that there was anything quite as firm and locked as a concept as a reboot of At Midnight was, which came to us from Stephen Colbert and the Funnier Die gang and a handful of people who worked on the original. at midnight as well. And so, like, they came in with just like a real killer pitch. They played the game with three or four of us that were on the Zoom. And they knew what they wanted to do. I mean, and then the biggest challenge from that point was, like, well, how does it turn from a

half hour to an hour format? And how does it sustain over that period of time? What were those auditions like? In the press, it said it was Taylor Tomlson and two other people were the people and how many people do you recall auditioned? Did they do full out test shows? Or what consisted of the auditions? Yeah, they did end up getting the names ended up getting out. X-Mayo was one of the other people who auditioned and then there was one other person. Oh, is it Ricky? Ricky Valaz? Yeah, Ricky. Okay. He was a he's he's in the he's been a he's been in the he's been a bunch of Pete Davidson shows and and he was a correspondent on Larry Wilmore's late night show. Um, so, uh, basically, um, we had, um, we set up like a, a very, um, a very low five version of what the show might look.

like in an existing studio space that Funny or Die owned and used on a regular basis. So it was a very functional like 20 minutes of a game. We had a couple of writers. Joe Firestone was one of them already. She's great. Very funny. Smart. Just wrote another book.

Yeah. Do you know her books? She's great. She's so nice. and wonderful. I knew what her dad from Punderdome. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Joe, I'm a huge admirer. Not to speak too much about Joe, but like, it just makes me laugh every time she wrote a book called Murder on Sex Island.

And then she just wrote a sequel and it's called Sex on Murder Island. And she was just on Seth Myers as a guest. And she was like, I might have made this too confusing for people to know the difference between the two books. And it just made me laugh so much. Anyway, she helped to sort of write setups for our potential hosts. We had two improvisers who played as the contestants who had, I think were both groundlings. One of whom ended up appearing on the show a handful of times also. I would have to look back and my memory's gotten really bad.

I'm sorry that I can't remember their names. But they each over like the course of two days. We mixed it up a little bit, but we just watched them and just tried to see like who we could project out that everybody was great. They're all like, you know, it wasn't really, it was a situation that like, Taylor hooked all of us and

we were lucky enough to see all of them and like I I root for the careers and always get excited about the other about X and Ricky as well X-May was just in

she was in Wonder Man the Marvel series with this massive part in that so they're all doing great But like Taylor was the one that really stuck out as the, like, as the person who we need to bring in here and just immediately makes us look like a different show and someone who's bringing something that really hasn't been in this space before. Was Stephen Colbert there for the auditions or did you just watch them on tape afterward? Stephen was not on site for these on-camera tests.

He was there for once we did, I mean, he was in every interview process. In the test shows. He was there for all the test shows as well. He was there for all the test shows. He was incredibly involved in the, and like how the show was formatted and put together. but Carrie Bylik was who works for Stephen she was there every day on

on set for those tests There were 13 executive producers I've never heard of a late night show that had that many exec producers most of the time it's one person maybe two why 13 I don't I still don't understand looking at all the names I mean ultimately that was it was a lot

It wasn't that everybody was necessarily there day to day, but you're talking about a legacy show and one, two, three, four different production entities that all combined on this. So it ended up looking a little bit more like what I think you might see on a sitcom or a drama series where there is an inordinate amount of EP. level names there, but it was, it wasn't that there were 13 showrunners. Yeah, like James Dixon, Stevens manager, okay, so that, and then Mike Farah, funny or die, okay, that, yeah, that makes sense. I was going to ask you, was there any hesitation in

the beginning with Taylor Tomlson that she wasn't sure if she wanted to take the gig? I mean, later she said that there was a little bit, and she said she hesitated, but was that up front with the discussions that she wasn't sure if she wanted this? she had to be talked into it possibly? Well, you know, I think that, yeah, originally the idea of being a host of something four or five nights a week was not particularly interesting to Taylor because she didn't want to stop doing stand-up and not be able to go out on the road, which oftentimes is leaving on a Thursday or doing shows on a Thursday. that was in advance of the conversations about specifically what after midnight was going to be. She didn't know until they had sort of a more serious discussions that our plan all along was to shoot three times a week, sometimes two times a week, and potentially bulk shoot, potentially have an entire summer off.

to allow for these two dual parts of her to exist simultaneously. Challenging as though it may be ultimately ended up being too challenging. But yes, she did have hesitation on it because she didn't want to upend her stand-up career, which both was her first love and she's on this trajectory that is that very few have been off. So did she have to be really kind of talked into it? did anything set her over the edge, just thinking that her schedule, she'd be okay and she could still do both? Or did it become apparent very quickly when she said yes and they start a production that this would be a little bit more tricky than she thought? To accept it? No, you know what? I think it's one of those things where,

I don't know, I think about it like you talk about it. It sounds interesting. You think about it. Now you kind of start to want it. You have the interview with Stephen. It goes really well. Oh, I want this. You do the on-camera test. It goes really well. I see what it could be. I want this. And then the challenges with any of these shows, maybe with the exception of a few, the late late show with James Corden being one, where like it takes a little time to figure out the rhythms of it

to figure out what that show's going to be. One of the things that I think we did with, when we were putting the show together and talking about it with Taylor, it was, into a space where basically like it's all written for you. You just get to be yourself and have fun and like it's a game show.

I mean, you know, you look at anyone who's a current late night host who also does a game show. That's the easy part of the day for a lot of them because they just get to be in the role. Everything is kind of done and that is just banter if they have it. So she saw it as

a way and an opportunity to shine a light on a lot of people that she really likes in the comedy space, meet people that she gets to know and have fun with in the comedy space. And she is ultimately like the straight person in the role a lot where she gets to be funny and put her personality onto segments when she wants,

but that isn't the driver of a lot of what the show is. And then it turns into, I'll keep going if it's not like, the show changes in morphs and it's like, oh, you know what? Turns out we want more of Taylor. We like hearing about her. We want to hear her opinions. Crazy stuff's going on in the world right now.

We want to know how you feel about it because we know how much you share of yourself in your stand-up. So like whether, you know, if it's fans, they know that. If they're just watching her, it's like, oh, she's like a cool, engaging, hip, different person. Like, we want to see more of that. And so we asked her to bring more of that in there. And, you know, we made a, they made a joke, I should say, but we made a joke. Like, oh, we're going to do the talk show portion of the show. And then it's like, guess what?

We like that. We want to hear you talking to these people. Was she excited to do that? Was there any hesitation to break the format? Or was that something that she was on board with from the start? I would say the thing that was the biggest challenge initially was we would like when we said it wasn't the talk show portion. it was we want you to do a monologue we want you to bring a monologue into the show it's a lot we put it on her and it was like it doesn't have to be 10 minutes or 15 minutes

but we want to just allow that time so people get to know you and then bring you in and now they're on board with whatever you want to do they know what you're thinking about certain things and the biggest challenge is that's great we didn't hire monologue writers well we have to change that we have to adjust that we did a little bit but also like when I tailor, I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I think she said this before, when I Taylor am doing stand-up, I'm honing this for the better part of six months to a year before I'm ready to put it into a special. And now you're asking me to do this every night. But I didn't sign up for that. And so, you know, she had to trust us to say, like, this is

something that I think we can work on. And it doesn't have to be every night. but it would be really nice but it's something that we really need and the audience needs and so she said yes and she was on board but also like it's just a tricky and different type of show that increases the amount of time she's spending

on it and the energy that she's putting towards it which once again when you're talking about that balance of can I do this show and continue my career doing stand-up that ultimately was like rubber hit the road for her yeah she's extremely likable really, really good on camera. Why did they do the show at Paramount Studios

on Melrose instead of the CBS Broadcast Center? That was the show's decision. That was, we looked at a whole bunch of different options for space and studio. I've always said any place that has a water tower, you've got to go there. Paramount's a beautiful, beautiful place. Well, I'll tell you, like, it was a couple of things.

It was like, can we do something new that feels different in a space that also, like, maybe we get to take advantage of? We ultimately, like, probably didn't take as much advantage of being on the lot and, like, around the lot as we maybe would have if we lasted a couple more years and had, like, I'd say, like, proper, like, field production teams and stuff and been able to run around the lot and be, like, the kids that get to break into NCIS or whatever. we didn't do that but we liked being in a space that felt like it was our own and so that was why they wanted to to move somewhere else and also like it was affordable which was the other thing that like we had to really look at which sounds surprising I'm surprised but it was they they created a space for us to really be able to maximize our our budget there How did you find out that Taylor Tomlson didn't want to continue with at midnight? Did she tell you directly?

Did you hear from the producers or the network? It was a pretty nutty day, I would say. And that the first call I got on the day that I heard of that Taylor didn't want to do the show It was actually from the network that said, congratulations, we're going to pick up the show for our third season. And I was like, oh, that's incredible. We were waiting for a while for it. It was something that we were obviously hoping for,

and we'd worked really hard to get the show to a place that felt like it could sustain. Now, this is the challenge maybe with 13 executive producers. My conversation was with a handful of, was with my bosses and they were telling a handful of the producers. On a different conversation, same day with a different group of producers, Taylor, who did not know yet that the show had been picked up. I don't know if anybody on that, I can, nobody on this particular call knew that there was a third season that was being picked up

said that like I've been thinking about this for a while post fires post election just knowing what my lifestyle is like I don't think I can do this for a third season this is happen since I wasn't on that part of the call but so so shortly after I got a call that was like Taylor doesn't want to do the show anymore and it was she'd had that conversation before she'd heard or even knew about the pickup. I mean, ultimately, and she's talked about this too, it wasn't about, it was really about her like mental ability to handle both of these things and be able to have a life also.

She didn't, she knew that she wasn't going to be able to do all of those things. And so it wouldn't have been, it would have been a disservice to her and the show to continue in that capacity. It didn't really matter what else we threw it or like changing up the schedule, trying to adjust in a way that just allowed her more time to decompress or do other things. what she was hoping for, what she said also is the third season pickup wouldn't be tied specifically to Taylor hosting the show.

But the show was in a good enough space that they could have found another person to host the show. The network felt like this, we cannot spend more money, more advertising, more marketing on now introducing our audience to another host when they're starting to establish her.

They invested millions of dollars into Taylor Tomlson, so they thought we don't want to start from scratch. We already spent all this money. They felt like they would have been started from scratch if they were bringing in a new host. Did any of the producers or any of the CBA execs try to sit down with Ms. Tomlson

to try to convince her, find a way to keep to continue? Yeah, there were a lot of conversations. you know, I think here's one of the differences, and I didn't really talk to her about this directly. I talked to her. I did talk to her after she made the decision. I just wanted to tell her ultimately, like, when you hear something like this, when all of this comes at you in a 24-hour window of time, it hits in crazy ways. There's like this relief, and then there's a sadness, and then you have to make a decision and a choice about, like, what now what do you want to do? Are you going to be mad at everyone?

You're going to spend the next like four months, five months where you still get to make shows, continue to do shows, just being angry about the situation? Or do you go into this final, the final group of episodes with working with people that you really enjoy being around and enjoying these moments, which we didn't know at the time, but like they're pretty precious. and there's very few of them. A few of these shows now. And so my conversation was Taylor was, I just wanted to hear to know, like, please don't think you have to avoid me or that I'm angry about this.

I understand the decision. I wish I was able to do something to convince you otherwise. But I don't want you to feel like you can't show up now. you have the like you are that you're the helm of the ship like you're going to have to tell everybody obviously that like this is the this is why I did this and explain it but ultimately um I I I just wanted her to know like we're all we're all going to figure out what happens after the show ends and we're all really grateful that we got to work here it's a playbook but from Rick Ludwin I mean you get two class acts you and Rick um wouldn't you find out the day of that

she doesn't want to do this show. Is it that that night does the staff and the crew find out? I mean, it's in Hollywood, it is extremely hard to keep something under wraps. Was it that day that everybody found out and how did they find out? So not every decision was made

necessarily all in the same day. Those two conversations I had at the same day, the network wanted to pick up the show and that Taylor didn't want to continue hosting the show. It wasn't decided immediately by the network that they were going to maybe look at a second host. They had to think about that for a while, a short period of time.

But once they came to that decision, which would have been the next week, like within that seven-day window of time, that this will be the end, but you can finish out the season. that they that's when Taylor and the EP's and Stephen spoke to the staff. And so I'm sure a handful of people in key departments and

high level producers knew before the entire staff knew but almost everybody found out right around the same time. So the final episode was June of 2025. Before this time, was there any talk internally with CBS that Stephen Colbert's late show might have been losing money at this point, even though it was number one? Well, never with me. It was never a

conversation that I had with anybody. And I wouldn't necessarily have been privy to that conversation, which sounds weird because of what my title was, but because I was the exec that was on the West Coast and for after midnight and I wasn't the exact for Colbert. It wouldn't have necessarily had to have had that conversation with me. And also for for me, like if they did have that conversation, what am I going to do about it? Like I don't, I don't have any sway there. There is a chance, though. I would say even a decent chance the Colbert's show would still be on at least the rest of this year if Ms. Tomlinson's show continued. Is that fair to say? that that might have been the case.

Eventually, I'm guessing it might have gone this way anyway, but it might have bit them a little bit more time before they were canceled? I don't know. Honestly, I really don't know, because when they, you know, the Colbert conversation, the Colbert announcement, I should say,

happened like a month after I left CBS because my job was over once after midnight, it was head-ended. I just want to say, So funny, so talented, Taylor Tomlson, have an amazing career. And again, she had no idea that that would happen, that the franchise, the late, late show,

or the after midnight would happen. And I've never met her, but everyone I've talked to that has worked with her and that knows her has only said flowing things. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was, but it was, I only say that it was like a pretty big surprise

to me as well. that CBS had decided to make that decision about the late show, you know, when I hadn't heard anything about it in that prior to. And I would say also like, once they made that decision, I don't actually really know what they would have done about 1230. Maybe they'd pick it up and maybe they would have continued. Maybe they wouldn't have even decided to do another season. Because we had the entire, no matter what,

from June, that last episode that we did of After Midnight, which was the very last episode of the series, it would have been the last episode of the season. And we would not have been on the air until that fall. Oh, interesting. We would have had an entire summer of reruns, or maybe they would have run Piran Allen there or something in place, although I'm pretty sure we're going to be run reruns. Were there any discussion that you're aware of at CBS talking about Colbert being too political? obviously nobody that has ever succeeded at one of those shows at 1130 had ever taken a political slant and succeeded and he was the first.

Was there any discussion, CBS, that you heard from people that we wish he might not be as political? No, nothing like that had come up. I mean, this is the thing that I think is a little bit tricky for me. I never heard anything like that. It wasn't a conversation that came up at all for me. If it happened in other places, maybe. I'd never met, still haven't met anybody who was from the Skydance group that took over the company as well that runs Paramount. They weren't involved in any meetings or decisions when I was there.

And so, you know, you got to give credit to CB. yes, for nothing else, that they've done a good job for decades of keeping things really quiet when they wanted to and having that cone of silence around whoever was supposed to be in that cone. Colbert, I mean, you got to give it to him, number one in his time slot for, you know, 10, I think 10 years out of the 11 years. Looking at some of the numbers, though, I am a little bit surprised in terms of, you know, James Corden had all these signature bits, like a lot of the late night shows. And that was one thing that Colbert's show lacked. They didn't really work on having a lot of signature bets. James Corden on YouTube,

28.2 million YouTube subscribers, Colbert, and that was eight years. Colbert was on for 11 years, 10.7 million, less than half. Do you think looking back, and it's easy to look now that the show is, it doesn't exist anymore, was that surprising to you at all that they weren't more competitive with those two areas? On the Colbert. Well, the thing, I think I think about Corden. Let me start there. We went in and we knew at 1230, like the audience that we were intentionally grabbing

were online and on their phones. Almost all of us came from a place where, you know, whether it was me with, I worked on the Pete Holm Show and like we, our entire audience was essentially comprised of people on YouTube. People who came from Fallon, people who came from the UK and worked on X Factor or any of the comic relief sketches, they knew what a viral video was worth.

And so they really made an effort to put things online, to try to reach an audience. And also, it was an incredibly international show from the beginning, which is not necessarily the case on a lot of late night, certainly historically. So the difference between those shows is like, what are we supposed to do at 1230? We're supposed to be the pop culture. We're supposed to be the like the young ones that are pushing and pushing. And 1130 is you just watch the news. You just went through a day of hearing all the insanity that went on.

Here's how we're going to decompress. And so I would say that Colbert probably came from a more traditional place when it comes to content. And so how much that tracked in who was watching it and how much people were watching it online, I think that just sort of like shows where that audience was very sizable, but it's a different audience. It was. They were number one, but I mean, Jay Leno, when he had so many signature bets. I mean, Kimmel as well, it was just different. But in terms of the viewership, I mean, yeah, to be number one from all that time is a huge accomplishment. The Jay Leno show at 10 o'clock, were you there when Jay had Jimmy Kimmel remote

to ask him 10 questions? And Jay later said, Kimmel sucker punched me. He basically brought up without mentioning Conan. What was the best practical joke you ever played? I said that I would give, oh, Jimmy said I told somebody I was going to give them my show, my talk show,

something to that effect. What happened after the show? You would sit down with Jay normally and go through the show. what was his reaction after the show? I remember being in the audience for that moment where Jimmy is on, like, they basically were the equivalent of Zoom at the time,

where that's happening in real time, also knowing that like there's a very short window between when that show is taping and when it's going to air. It is four and a half hours earlier than they would normally have done it on the Tonight Show, right? like we're getting beyond at 10 so it's got a feed at seven on the west coast they taped that show at 3.30 maybe 4 o'clock in the afternoon um essentially anything that's in the show is going to be in the show like there is no editing of it if you only took that out if they decided not we

because i really didn't have that much cloud there i watched it and i thought this is this is going to be a thing no matter what you take it out they're going to talk about it on his show. They're probably recording it on their side. It's, I don't, I mean, there's no way that Jay knew what Kimmel was going to say, his answers to those questions. They all do, like, they're a second producer of that. They go through what the questions are going to be. They go through what the answers are going to be. But that was, that was just an incredibly complex several weeks slash year

sorry it was it was hard to watch I'm sure it was hard to be a part of but then again so was that entire period of time how was Jay and Debbie Vickers

Jack Cohen after the show in that meeting following I honestly nothing stands out in my memory as like a signature thing that I was like, I can't believe this guy or I can't believe this happened. I think it was just like we're in an impossible situation. And guess what?

Maybe we put ourselves here to a certain extent. But we also in two months are going to be back at the Tonight Show and have to figure that out. So how do we get through all of this? knowing now we are like the bad guys in a story that I don't even know how many people outside of us remember. And in a time period that also just seems like, it's just crazy. It's crazy that people wrote books about this. The people you talk to you on a regular basis wrote books about that. I mean, you were there.

I mean, at this point, you know, when it was decided that Conan was going to get the Tonight Show from Lano after four or five years, Jay stopped talking to Rick Ludwin. He felt Rick was taking his side. So you were basically the one that was dealing with Jay. Were you the one that actually had to tell Conan or was Rick and you to tell Conan that their plan was to have Jay at 1130 and then move the Tonight Show to midnight? Were you in for that meeting? No, I wasn't. This, everything at a certain point happened at such a high level that it had not.

up being like Rick to a certain extent, but even like Jeff Gaspin, I think was the president at that point, Jeff Zucker, I'm sure, was in that space for a little while. Mark Graveoff was in that space. It was like a very high level of conversations that were happening and then nothing happened. So wait, just to take it back for a second, for Jay and Rick, Things became, I became really the sort of the go-between basically for our last year and change there. So like all the way through 0-8-09, everything, everything was okay. It was like all these announcements were happening. And when they happened, they were sort of like coming out of the TMZs of the world.

Nikki Think, Deadline Hollywood, what is going on with our industry? Yeah. And so because these decisions were made above Rick, he didn't feel like there were things that he needed to talk about or he wouldn't be the mouthpiece of it. And so I understood that. I mean, I certainly didn't feel any differently. like, how are you supposed to talk about something when you weren't the ones who were, was making the decisions about it?

And it was just sort of like a very difficult, fractious time. The thing that I have to remember sometimes about it is like, he's already, he'd already been through this. It's not like that was pleasant before, but like he had been through challenging, strange, weird, late night moments. And then gotten through. them and survived and came out on the other side of it. Rick had been through stuff with the whole with the whole letterman, with the whole Letterman,

Leno and other things. The whole Norm, Don Allmeyer as well. Yes. For Jay, I think the, I think, you know, very famously, like, he didn't have a, he didn't have agents and managers and people surrounding him that he would bounce things off of and weigh a lot of these decisions. He liked to do things by himself. He liked. liked making quick decisions and moving on to the next thing. Like, a lot of it was lack of white for him in terms of whether you wanted to do something or didn't want to do something. And so the repercussions of what this might be and how people would react to him,

I don't think that was really part of that conversation in his head before he made these decisions. I think the thing that I honestly feel the best about all this, This is however I see the relationship between Jay and Rick was in that moment, in those moments after, they were able to reconcile. And I'm glad over at Fallon, were you there for that? I wasn't there for that. No, I heard about it afterwards, but I wasn't there for it. And I was glad.

And also, like, I mean, I feel very fortunate that I can remain friendly with all of the people in all of these camps. and it's to the extent where like, like, I revere Conan. He's one of the, like, great comedic figures, bar none. He thanked you on his last show. No, I know that there's camp over there. They all adore you. And, I mean, I feel the same way.

And, like, I've any chance I get now to see them, I find that, like, still very exciting. at the same time, I worked on the talk for the final season, the CBS Daytime show, and when we were looking for someone to be a guest after the most recent presidential election, I called Jay and I asked him if he would want to talk about this

because I think he'd put it in a light that he's been through this before and he could talk about it in an interesting way. And he said, yes, and it was nice to see him. And it was like we got to catch up. And so, you know, now I feel like I'm ragging. I'm not trying to. You're not. No, no.

This is good. Rick protected all of his relationships other than maybe, you know, the Letterman thing was inevitable. Even Norm MacDonald, people think him and Rick, they remain cordial. Norm came in to meetings after he was let go. That was Allmeyer. Rick did support Don, but that was 100% Allmeyer's decision. Totally.

I mean, Norm came in and pitched. shows to him. They were on good terms. Rick was, yeah, Rick was always great about that. And I mean, I,

I, I see the value in it. And the older I get, I think I, like, it's not worth harboring these grudges. It's not.

He had great relationships. The only other person I know Rick had not a great relationship with was, and this man, unfortunately, has it with other people, was Dennis Miller.

Dennis Miller had a bet. You know, he left Saturday Night Live and would go on Tom Snyder and say, just, things that did about Lorne Michaels. And I know that Rick, it seemed like that there's certain people, like Tom Snyder was one that just had a problem with whoever was in charge. I'm not saying Dennis always had that, but I know Rick told me that on the final CNBC show with Dennis Miller,

he was going to walk in across the parking lot to say thank you to Dennis. And he's like, you know what? It's not worth it because it was so contentious. That's your recollection too, correct? It just not everybody sees eye to eye, I guess. That was a tricky two years, two seasons of that show where ultimately like this is how Rick felt about any of these shows. Some people want an executive to be around and to watch them. Some of them would rather keep an arm's distance. And Dennis was one of the ones, at least for this show, they preferred to keep an arms distance. And Rick was fine with that.

It wasn't. We don't need to be everybody's best friend. Yeah. I was going to ask you about Katie Couric guest host in The Tonight Show for Jay Leno. Jay told me when I interviewed him for my book, he was nice to give me 50 minutes, that he did not want to have Katie Curric guest host for him, and then they switched places.

Jay then was on the Today Show. He said NBC forced him to do that. Is that your recollection? And I would think Jay, with all his power, just could have said no at the end of the day. but he said NBC forced me. Those were his words. This is certainly,

my remembrance of it was it was the Jeff Zucker idea. And, you know, he came from the Today Show. He wanted something that felt stunted. You know, forced feels like it's all hard. Well, he said they made me. They made me. I didn't want to do what they made me.

That's probably true because, like, Jay's got to go to New York. He's got to wake up in the morning. He's got to do three hours of that. show, like in a way that like now someone else is going to be in his place and, um, and we never had guest hosts on. Never. He had the correspondence. That was what, what he did. You spent years with Rick Ludwin, you would go monthly almost to Saturday night live. And you would spend time with, with Lorne Michaels and Marcy Klein. You would do after the show, you'd go through

everything, kind of a post-mortem. What are a few lessons that you, learn from observing Lauren Michaels? Maybe the biggest takeaway is just like his approach to almost everything. I never saw him get too up or down about any topic that we would bring up. He wouldn't necessarily also commit in the room to anything. He likes to, which is so interesting because doing a live show and being, being there in the moment, he's got to make split-second decisions. What's going to be in the show in between dress and air?

What's going to be in the last half hour of the episode? But if we had a dozen topics to bring up, I would say almost none of them would be decided in a room. He and that was okay. That was one of the things I think he enjoyed was, like, like, he figured out how to do things on his time, it wasn't on the network's time, and then everybody sort of like adjusts accordingly. I always found him like, I'd say like, he was very loyal in a way that maybe people get and understand based on like the number of documentaries and books and now that what people

have seen about him. But even for someone like me. you know, having been there for a decade or so, having met with him and seen him and, like, he'd sometimes give me a little project to do. Not like a huge one, but it's like, hey, call Paramount and make them give us a best of Tom Hanks. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? Okay. Or like, hey, we're doing a best of Mike Myers. Like, can you ever see it on the Saturday Memorial Day weekend?

I was like, okay, I'll like, okay. And so, like, little, you know, feeling like they're big things, but ultimately little things. It was like singular questions, conversations. It wasn't like I was now a showrunner for him. I was nothing like that. But when they merged our late night department into the reality department at NBC, he made sure to meet with me in L.A. when he came to

the next time that he came around and I met him at the Beverly Hills Hotel or wherever he would be and that's like the go-to. A puddle of a lounge, he loves it. That's where he stays, yeah. It's one of those. While we were there, it's a fun little story,

Drake is in the lounge and I'm like, Drake had just hosted or just been on us and out like within the last, a month of when we were meeting. And I was like, I wonder if Florham's going to like notice or be there. Like I've never just sort of seen that happen. Of course he does. Of course, they talk to each other like the best pals.

It's a really fun moment. I'm sitting at the bar just sort of waiting. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. And then he just was like, I am here. I'm here for you. Like anything I can do to help along the way, like let me know. we talked about the things he was doing. It was like a casual conversation,

but he was just very warm in a way that like, I never forgot when I got things to do new jobs or whatever, like I might send an email or call and he would be like very happy for me. I congratulate. I think he was hoping. Well, I should say this. I was hoping, I'm sure. He was like if there was anything in the Broadway space like,

Broadway video space, like maybe we could figure something out. nothing ever really happened there. We all did just fine. But it just was, it was just cool. Like he exuded cool, but also like warmth

in a way that I would never have expected. And we don't keep in touch now, but... I love the fact that he took time to do that. Last question I had about Saturday Night Live with you and Rick, though, the 10 or 11 years that you worked with, Rick. How many times did you and Rick have to call over to Saturday Night Live? I know there was an incident with writer Hugh Think who wrote an update piece just bashing NBC. It was the holidays. It was, I think, the Christmas party. I think that was getting funding was getting taken away and he did this piece at read through and it killed.

And Rick basically said, I'm not saying you can't do it, but if you do, it's going to, it is going to jeopardize your relationship with NBC. These were Hughes words. And I talked to Rick a little bit about that. Is that your recollection? And how often did these calls were they made to writers like that? That is the only call I remember. Okay. That is the only time I remember that happening. And it was like very early on to my working for Rick. It might have been in the first season where he,

my recollection of it is that he read it at the read-through. Yes. Rick, we usually would get the packet the next day. So they couldn't email them at that point. Like we just got like paper, some massive stack of scripts. And Rick read it. I don't know who he's.

I'm sure he would have talked to one of the producers first. I'm sure that I would, you know, this is me guessing a little bit. They were like, talk to Hugh. I remember them having this conversation. Did you think it was funny personally? I don't even remember necessarily whether Rick thought it was funny. I just remember him being concerned about what it would do ultimately for, it was two things. One, how NBC would feel about it, but more importantly, what that would do to Hugh and his career.

And that was just worth knowing. It was worth getting out there and saying, like, is this so important to you? Is this such a monumental piece of content, sketch feature, that you would jeopardize it getting you, I don't know if anybody who got banned from the network at that point, but like, you know, have ruined a relationship with the network. smigel turned out okay i'm in conspiracy rock i'm guessing rick rick would always call smigle and be like about this johnny carson sketches but at the end of the day we all know smigel's a genius and i mean there's always special cases here and there and robert is robert and we love him i you know the way

this this i mean i i i really don't remember everything that happened with this sketch but the way that rick put it um it felt closer to what happened to Al Franken. Oh, with Fred Silverman. Yes. And that was the impetus. It wasn't that like, all right, you're going to do a, you're going to goof on GE. All right, take your chance.

Like, it might not air a second time, but like, we'll see. You're going to make fun of, you know, you can dress up as Jeff Zucker and make fun of him. Like, you can try it. You can see it. Maybe it'll work. But it was, this one was different. I think that's why I got to that. Got it.

Nick Bernstein, I'm so happy that we got to talk. I have so many more questions. I hope you come back at some point. And I'm, every time I talk to you, or I know I've mentioned this a lot, I am so grateful, first of all, that I know you and that you had me at Trix Memorial. It was such a special time. You and Chad organized this beautiful, beautiful event, and Conan got up and Seinfeld. And I remember George was there, Shapiro. I mean, it was really, really just beautiful. beautiful event and I'm grateful I could be there. Oh, well, it's very nice for you to say. I know Rick would have been very happy that you were there also. I miss him, man. I do. I miss him. I mean, you knew him forever. I mean, I can imagine that you think about him all the time. He was such a good, good guy. And I'm grateful that I was able to capture his contribution in the Carson podcast episode. I mean, I'm going to listen to it today. I have it loaded up. I'm ready to all listen again. It just sounds like our friend is back with us. I miss him. Yeah, thank you, Nick. This was fun.

Thank you. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe so you never miss an episode. On Apple Podcasts, please rate it and leave a review. Be sure to go to late-nighter.com for all your late-night TV news. And you can find my podcast at late-nighter.com forward slash podcasts. Have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Tuesday.