Stephen, nobody gives a *beep* about the NFL, so stop pretending you like it or need to talk about it in your opening monologue. Can I please just have my 10-15 minutes of current events, with a bit of that Colbert wit thrown in?
shareFirst of all, an absolutely mind boggling number of viewers care about the NFL. Just to put this in perspective, Stephen's been scoring, on average, a .4 market share with 18-49 year olds and about 2 million total viewers. Last Sunday's football game earned an 8.4 market share with 23 million viewers. That's 10 times more total viewers and 20 times more viewers that advertisers care about. Last years super bowl had 167 million viewers. Football has more television viewers than anything else by an extremely wide margin.
Second, late night tv, first and foremost, is a business. All talk show hosts have to shill for their respective corporations. They all have a responsibility to get their viewers amped about other programs currently airing on their networks- regardless of how they might feel about the programs personally.
Now, I think it is pretty obvious that Stephen would probably rather read a book than watch a football game, and his previous, younger Colbert Report demographic was most likely less into football than his new demo, but neither really means much in the scope of things. As long as football completely dominates viewership as much as it has, and as long as CBS airs it, Stephen will have to do his best to promote the heck out of it- in that same incredibly fake manner that's driving you and I up the wall.
Very eloquent response :)
Yeah, I figured it was because CBS was pushing the NFL thing.
It's my fault though, I have an irrational hate for anything having to do with professional sports. I'm perfectly fine with Stephen promoting a can of Campbell's soup (or whatever) during the show though.