Jimmy Fallon will air after Sunday Night Football games this season
By Matt Moore
Special live episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon will air throughout the NFL season.
NBC is drawing up some new plays to help boost The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Five special episodes of The Tonight Show will air after Sunday Night Football broadcasts this fall.
Sunday Night Football has been a very lucrative investment for NBC. The network has pulled in impressive ratings for broadcasting the prime time games since 2006. Last year’s games averaged 20 million viewers per game.
NBC is hoping to use that audience to give The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon a bump. After five Sunday night games this season, The Tonight Show will air an episode after local news broadcasts. The hope is that enough NFL fans will stick around to watch Fallon.
The move comes in part as a response to The Tonight Show slipping behind The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the ratings. Colbert’s politics heavy approach gave him the late night crown this past season.
In a wise move, NBC doesn’t want Fallon to try to beat Colbert at his own game. Instead the network is using the advantages it already has in place over competitors. And nobody has been able to come close to competing with Sunday Night Football.
The fall is the season of new beginnings in television. It looks as if NBC is applying this philosophy to The Tonight Show. Don’t be surprised to see more live shows and event episodes to attract audience attention and break up the inherent monotony of late night shows.
The pre-taped Sunday editions of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon will not necessarily been an “extra” episode. Instead, the Friday nights will be a rerun during the five weeks that feature a Sunday show.
Fans will see the first of these shows on Sept. 8 following the Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots game. The other dates are Oct. 6, 20, and 27 and Dec. 1.
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The move by NBC to hitch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to Sunday Night Football is a smart one. The five episode test run should give a good indication of how popular Jimmy Fallon is with NFL fans and determine if Sundays with Fallon continue to be a thing.