“None of the above” trounced all other choices when a national poll asked U.S adult citizens to name “the best” late-night comedian on TV - yet another sign of viewers’ growing disdain for the hateful political commentary that has replaced entertainment.
In a national survey conducted May 15-18, 2026, The Economist/YouGov asked:
“Who do you think is the best late-night comedian on TV?”
Fully 38% chose “None of the above” – three times the number who selected any of the top-rated hosts on NBC (Jimmy Fallon), CBS (Stephen Colbert), ABC (Jimmy Kimmel) and Fox News Channel (Greg Gutfeld), all of whom ended up in a virtual tie, garnering 11%-13% of the vote. Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart (8%) and HBO’s John Oliver (5%) drew single-digit percentages of the vote for best late-night comedian. Former late-night host James Corden was named by 1% of those polled.
The popularity of “none” is emblematic of the long-term trend of viewers losing interest in late-night shows. Taken together, late-night talk shows have not been profitable since 2022, with losses steadily increasing each year, according to analysis by LateNighter:
“In 2015, the typical 11:30pm talk show brought in well over $200 million in revenue and made a healthy profit. By 2023, the same show was underwater, and by 2025, losses are well into the tens of millions of dollars—even with cost controls that have been put into place by most of the major shows in recent years.”
“As for how we got here, the story begins and ends with the decline in linear ratings,” LateNighter explained, citing Nielsen Live+7 data:
“CBS’s The Late Show, NBC’s The Tonight Show, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!—have seen declines of 70–80% in the key 18–49 demographic since 2015. That year marked the beginning of a new era: Colbert took over from David Letterman, Fallon had just succeeded Jay Leno, and Kimmel had moved up to 11:35pm.”
Across all demographics, Forbes reports that NBC has been the biggest loser of broadcast network late-night audiences over the last decade since the 2015-2016 season, Jimmy Fallon’s average “Tonight Show” audience has fallen 64% from 3.6 million viewers to 1.3 million in 2025.
In 2016, Republican President Donald Trump began his first term in office, prompting many liberal late-night hosts to abandon actual comedy for increasingly hate-filled political attacks masquerading as humor, potentially alienating about half of the nation’s late-night viewers.
Kimmel, for example, was suspended last September for making false and malicious comments on his show regarding the assassination of conservative Charlie Kirk. Even before he was pulled, about three-fourths of adults weren’t watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
At the time, less than half (43%) of adults said they had a “favorable opinion” of Kimmel, including a minority (45%) of Independents and just 12% of Republicans. Among Democrats, however, 76% viewed Kimmel favorably. What’s more, Kimmel’s ratings had fallen in each of the past 12 years.
Meanwhile, CBS has announced that Colbert’s show is canceled as of May 21 of this year, which the network says is “due to purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” “The timing, of course, is impossible to ignore. Colbert has been a known thorn in the side of Donald Trump,” LateNighter notes.
Results reported this week by The Economist/YouGov reveal notable differences in late-night host preferences based on age, race and party identification.
Younger adults were the most likely to say “None of the above,” with nearly half (46%) of those 18-29 making this choice, along with 42% of the advertiser-coveted 30-44 cohort. In contrast, roughly a third of those 45-64 (34%) and 65+ (31%) didn’t name a host, opting instead for “none.”
Greg Gutfeld, host of Fox News Channel’s late-night show on cable, was the most-popular late-night comedian among White adults (17%), while Kimmel was most-often selected as the best by both Blacks (27%) and Hispanics (17%).
By party, just 20% of Democrats said “none,” compared to half (49%) of Republicans and 40% of Independents. Colbert (23%) and Kimmel (22%) were rated the best among Democrats, while Gutfeld topped all other hosts with Republicans (30%).
