Paramount’s CBS will air a special two-hour presentation of “Comics Unleashed” that celebrates the late night program’s 20th anniversary, the network announced on Wednesday.
The special will air in prime-time on Tuesday, September 29, with the program offering clips of Allen’s monologues, interviews and comedic panels over the past two decades. Guests will be announced at a later date, CBS said in a press release.
Comics Unleashed debuted in first-run syndication on local television stations in 2006. The show produced more than 230 episodes before taking an extended production hiatus in 2016, after which repeats aired in syndication and on showrunner and host Byron Allen’s comedy network Comedy.TV.
The show is known for its four-quadrant comedy — no politics, no roasting — that is intended to generate mass appeal among TV viewers disenfranchised by the polarized late night landscape.
CBS began airing the show at 12:35 a.m. in 2024 following the end of “After Midnight,” and moved the program to its current time slot at 11:35 p.m. when “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ended its run several months ago.
During Nielsen’s mid-July measurement week, the show attracted more than 800,000 viewers over the age of two and 83,000 viewers in the demographic of adults between the ages of 18 and 49 years old, the latter of which representing the group that most broadcast TV advertisers seek to target.
Data from Nielsen and supplied by Allen Media Group showed Comics Unleashed has a strong watch-through rate, retaining more than 90 percent of its audience who choose to watch the show live rather than taping it or watching segment clips on YouTube. By comparison, other late night fare on NBC and ABC have retention rates between 78 percent and 88 percent, the data shows. Colbert’s watch-through rate was around 76 percent by the time his show went off the air.
About the Author: