With Jimmy Fallonâs impending takeover of The Tonight Show set for next February, Seth Meyers has been considered the frontrunner to be the new host of NBCâs 12:35am show, Late Night, for months now. NBC made Meyersâs new job official yesterday when they announced him as the fourth host of Late Night.
Bill Carter at The NY Times has some new info about the transition:
Meyers is expected take over Late Night, like Fallon and Tonight, around the time of NBCâs Winter Olympics coverage in February.
Meyers will stay on SNL through the fall season and will most likely leave at midseason in December to start working on his new show in January.
Meyers wants to continue to have comedic characters visit his desk like he does on Weekend Update and says he intends to hire âA company of writer-performer hybrids who can come on and do stuff on the show. Weâre in the very early stages of thinking about all this, but thatâs very interesting to me.â
Beyond that, Meyers isnât sure what his version of Late Night will be like or if itâll even have a house band. He tells The Times, âI donât want to make any broad pronouncements about how the show is going to be, whether itâs going to be the same or different. But I have to draw on my background in improvisational comedy and sketch comedy and stand-up comedy and try to find some mix of that.â
No word on who will take over Meyersâs Weekend Update hosting duties or head writer duties at SNL. With SNL writer/stand-up John Mulaneyâs sitcom pilot not moving forward at NBC, he seems like the best man for the Weekend Update job to us.
