Jimmy Fallon On The Future Of Late Night And Being A Super Marketer
Forbes Daily Briefing
Forbes
4.4 • 18 Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2025
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As late-night television declines, The Tonight Show host is preparing for tomorrow by building an entertainment empire based on his irrepressible joy. With the launch of his new marketing competition show, On Brand, he’s getting down to business.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Sunday, October 19th. |
| 0:05.5 | Today on Forbes, Jimmy Fallon on the future of late night and being a super marketer. |
| 0:12.8 | In his 11 years as host of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon has always been an idea machine, |
| 0:18.9 | constantly dreaming up new comedy segments, new products, even entirely |
| 0:23.2 | new programs. He once pitched NBC a drama about a murderous priest who takes his own confession, |
| 0:29.7 | thus absolving his soul of sin. Fallon says with his characteristic giggle, quote, |
| 0:35.1 | they didn't like that, so off-brand for me, but you got to take those swings, |
| 0:39.2 | man. The 51-year-old comedian's own personal brand, hot wiring an encyclopedic love of pop culture |
| 0:46.8 | with his hyper-enthusiastic positivity, has defined his late-night talk show, and in recent years |
| 0:52.9 | become an even more natural fit on game shows |
| 0:55.8 | he has produced, such as Password and That's My Jam. It's a collection of jobs for which NBC |
| 1:01.7 | has made him one of the highest-paid hosts on TV, with a contract that Forbes estimates at $16 million |
| 1:07.8 | annually. That doesn't mean Fallon is immune to the pressures of television's structural decline. |
| 1:14.6 | While Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of late night as the Tonight Show host for nearly 30 years, |
| 1:20.4 | Fallon ranks third in viewership in his time slot, behind Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, |
| 1:26.2 | averaging 1.2 million viewers per night, and the show's |
| 1:29.5 | ad revenue is down 35% from 2022 to 2024, according to ad data provider, Ispot TV. |
| 1:37.3 | The abrupt cancellation in July of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which CBS claimed was |
| 1:42.5 | losing $40 million per year, prompted many to declare |
| 1:45.9 | the imminent demise of late night, adding a level of urgency to Fallon's side hustles. |
| 1:52.2 | Into this turbulent landscape, he launched On-Brand with Jimmy Fallon on September 30th, a new NBC |
| 1:58.0 | reality competition show in the mold of Shark Tank and The Apprentice, in which contestants, with no marketing experience, pitch can't have been able to do with a new NBC reality competition show in the mold of Shark Tank and The Apprentice, in which contestants |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Forbes, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Forbes and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.