Not long after CBS revealed that Stephen Colbert—the man, not the character—would be taking over for David Lettermen, Craig Ferguson announced that he would not be renewing his contract with the network to continue hosting his Late Late Show. We’ve already heard about who could be replacing him, and now we might know where he’s going next.
According to Variety, Ferguson is currently in the midst of closing a deal with Tribune Media that would see him hosting “a daily syndicated half-hour talk show.” Not only that, but said daily syndicated half-hour talk show would supposedly air at seven p.m., instead of whenever his Late Late Show is on. The plan is to pair Ferguson’s new show with reruns of sitcoms that people like—the examples given are Two And A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory—in order to “rev up” viewers for primetime. It sounds like the show will have a spot for guest interviews, but it will mostly be a “showcase for the offbeat humor” that Ferguson brought to his Late Late Show. Also, it’s unclear at this point if his wacky characters like Geoff the robot and Secretariat the horse will join him.
The problem, as Variety points out, is that this plan would put him up against established heavyweights of the “just before primetime” slot, including Wheel Of Fortune, Jeopardy, and those celebrity news shows that all seem exactly the same. So even if a network in a certain market wants to run Ferguson’s Slightly Earlier Show—not the real name—it might not even have a spot for it. Either way, the deal is still being ironed out, so the final show might look a little different from all of this anyway.