Management in Action

Must-See Quarantine TV

Late-night TV has been a mainstay of network television for generations. Johnny Carson entertained audiences for a few decades starting in the 1960s before being replaced by the likes of David Letterman and Jay Leno in the 1980s and 1990s.Today, the three most watched hosts, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel, each bring in tens of millions of viewers and more than $400 million in ad revenue per year.

Late-night TV shows may have different hosts, but their live studio-audience format is largely similar. They typically start with a monologue poking fun at the day’s news and prerecorded or live skits. This is followed by celebrity interviews and musical performances. Most shows have an announcer, house band, and dozens of stage crew, writers, producers, and others that make it all happen. It takes a high-performing team to deliver a high-quality show. But what happens when a pandemic leaves studios empty, prohibits famous guests from traveling, and restricts hosts to their houses? That’s exactly what happened during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Let’s shine a spotlight on what many called “Quarantine TV.”

IN-HOUSE PRODUCTION, LITERALLY

Samantha Bee, host of the Emmy Award-winning late-night show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, was filming a segment for her show when she encountered an issue she had never dealt with before. “There was literally a screeching hawk, circling up in the sky,” she recalled. Bee wasn’t filming at some exotic location overseas, she was actually on set—at her house. She asked her new makeshift production crew, her husband and three children, to please hold shooting for hawk sounds. “You have to be OK with whatever nature provides. This is really uncharted territory for any of us,” she said.

Bee wasn’t alone in a new world of late-night TV production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social-distancing and self-quarantining guidelines meant hosts had to work virtually with limited resources. Molly McNearney, the co-head writer and a producer of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, said it took three hours to shoot a six-minute monologue with host Jimmy Kimmel. “He’s used to having a teleprompter guy and a team of 140 people helping him there,” she said.¹⁷⁵ Instead, Kimmel and other hosts used iPhones and videoconferencing tools to record segments and celebrity interviews.

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COLLABORATING TO SERVE AN AUDIENCE IN SHOCK

Hosts may be the face of a show, but there are dozens—if not hundreds—of individuals on these late-night teams making sure it all goes as smoothly as possible. Late-night show content typically reflects daily events and what society is thinking, which writers quickly incorporate into the show’s monologue, skits, and questions for celebrity guests. This requires efficient and collaborative processes. First, producers source the most interesting and important material. After the material has been developed, writers script it in a way that draws laughs. Then different crews, such as video, audio, and makeup, act to meet taping deadlines. After all of this has been completed, editors enter the process to make sure the show meets broadcast standards.

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted this interconnected system by shutting down lavish Hollywood and New York studios. Production crews scrambled from their homes, trying to connect virtually to meet deadlines. The Tonight Show showrunner Gavin Purcell needed to change his team’s processes in order to ensure the show could keep airing and entertaining the millions who were quarantined at home. Purcell developed new virtual norms with an understanding that the same on-set resources everyone was used to weren’t going to be there. “We’re now trying to create a normalcy, in a world where nothing is normal right now, but we’re trying to make it so that the actual production of it is a little bit more simplified and put systems in place.”

These production systems were incredibly important in a world that was reeling from a pandemic and looking for some late-night TV stress relief before bed. “We are a staff of planners, and even though this is something you could never plan for, those skills are coming in handy,” said Late Night with Seth Meyers showrunner Mike Shoemaker. Shoemaker, whose show was being filmed in host Meyers’ attic crawl space, needed to guide a team that was highly performing, but regressed to its more primitive days due to inexperience with virtual technology and the need for new roles. “Every day a new problem arises that literally never existed before and we problem-solve the solution for next time. Then something completely different goes wrong.”

Working in a virtual environment was particularly difficult for writers whose creativity is predicated on timing, banter, and constant collaboration with teammates. “If I had a joke idea or could punch up somebody else’s joke, I would just walk over to their office, say it to them, and walk back. It’s done in about 12 seconds,” said The Tonight Show writer Gerard Bradford. “Now it takes maybe five minutes, because you have to e-mail or text that person and wait for them to reply.” Virtual shows also meant no studio audiences, so writers couldn’t gauge how their jokes landed in real time. “You forget how important nonverbal communication is,” said Late Night writer Alex Baze. Writers are typically able to get performance feedback from a studio audience’s laughter, raised eyebrows, shifting in seats, etc. Without an audience, that feedback is missing, making it harder for changes to the next day’s show. “Even when it’s done, you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t know if that was good,’” said Baze.

All in all, production teams were able to adapt to a new way of producing content for millions of viewers. Experts, however, believe audiences were more forgiving in their content and quality critiques because it was the first time in modern history that a pandemic had made such a drastic impact on people’s daily lives.Viewers may not be as understanding the next time. For example, Jimmy Fallon’s creative use of his daughters to help him with skits or Samantha Bee chopping wood in her backyard will only go so far on shows that need fresh content every night.Content that doesn’t intrigue viewers will lead to decreased viewership, which means less ad revenue for the network.¹⁸¹ With this in mind, late-night TV teams will need to be better prepared in case they find themselves in this situation again. Will they be?

1- Use Tuckman’s Five Stage Model to describe how the change in producing late night TV could have caused teams to devolve.