Skip to footer

Arsenio Hall: How Arsenio plans to reconquer late night TV

Arsenio Hall returns to late night TV on Sept. 9. How will the host of 'The Arsenio Hall Show' woo viewers from Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and David Letterman?

  • By Jethro Nededog The Wrap/Reuters

Arsenio Hall doesn't seem overly worried about taking on late night's heavy hitters with the Sept. 9 return of his own late night talk show, "The Arsenio Hall Show."

Going against Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, and Jay Leno as he hands off to Jimmy Fallon, Hall explained how he intends to thrive.

First, find those viewers who don't already have a favorite. "I know that not everybody has a late-night host," Hall told reporters at a Television Critics Association panel on Monday.

Second, try to get viewers who will tune in two or hopefully three nights a week.

"You have people who come up to you and say, 'I'm your biggest fan. I watch you every night, man!' and that's not true," the host said. "Your biggest fan doesn't watch you every night. He may watch you three nights and then two nights he'll watch other people. You just want to offer a good, fun show and you're serving a unique personality that's not there so that you'll just be in the game."

"I just want to be in the game," he continued. "I just have to be better than one cat that's there."

How does he plan to do that? Hall said he's still the same host he was two decades ago -- except for some aesthetic changes. "Less hair, no shoulder pads, kind of the same guy," he said.

Executive producer Neal Kendall said Hall's show may be the best place to not only hear music, but hear performers talk. Hall had very good luck attracting the most popular acts of the '90s, and let loose with them in interviews. (They included future president Bill Clinton, who famously played the saxophone on the show which ran from 1989-1994).

From CBS Television Distribution, the syndicated "The Arsenio Hall Show" is scheduled to air on more than 200 channels nationwide.

Hall already has one person in late night lending him a hand. While they were fierce competitors back in the day ("When you're in competition, it's easier to hate each other," Hall said), the host is now good friends with Leno.

In fact, last August when "The Tonight Show" had to cut 20 percent of its budget and was undergoing layoffs, Leno recommended some of his former writers to Hall.

"I hired them, too," Hall said.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Arsenio Hall: How Arsenio plans to reconquer late night TV
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0730/Arsenio-Hall-How-Arsenio-plans-to-reconquer-late-night-TV
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe