Loyal Scaiaholics will recall I had previously applied for the position of late night mogul.

That was ten years ago, and turns out, the Lord had other plans. By answering that prayer with a “no,” He, in fact, saved me from a lot of rigmarole over the years. Of course, I was involved in a hullabaloo of my own during that stretch and am still trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but this blog is about late night television.

We’ve spent a lot of time reminiscing about the olden days in college, you and I. My associates and I have also been discussing this Stephen Colbert situation.

Had Colbert become too political? I’ve taken the position that after hearing a bunch of commotion on the news all day, I’d like to relax with some laughs at night.

Ratings suggest America agrees with me. Letterman was averaging more than three million viewers a night. Colbert opened with more than six million but had dropped to 2.4 million this spring.

Gutfeld is leading all late-night programs. Someone once urged me to check him out, but I said, “I deal with politics all day. The last thing I want to do is watch more politics at night.” He asked if I was still watching Colbert.

“What did I just say about not wanting to hear about politics?!” I replied. And there I saw the issue. I did watch Gutfeld, and regardless of how you feel about politics, his show is entertaining… but still political.

Letterman helped me gain perspective on the situation. Colbert is a political satirist, so ten years later, what did the brain trust at CBS think would happen?

CBS has argued this balderdash wasn’t related to what he said about Donald Trump but rather a broken business model for late night television. If I were losing millions of dollars a year on a venture, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t want it to continue no matter the ratings.

Has #ScaiaBlog become too soft to this kind of prattle? The editorial board does regret we got tired of thinking of synonyms for “rigmarole” and just looked at a thesaurus for prattle. I’m concerned to see I might even agree with Jay Leno in this situation.

John Oliver says he always intended his show to have a social message, but I respect his position on taking a hard pass on getting comedic advice from Leno.

The media landscape has become so fragmented, the position of late night mogul may no longer exist. But since he was cancelled, Colbert’s ratings have gone up. Maybe late night shows have just lost the absurdity that drew people in and needed a hook to bring them back.

To test this hypothesis, I’ll have an associate get in a giant cereal bowl to see if the Rice Krispies really do snap, crackle and pop to the consumer’s satisfaction.