Late night television in the United States
Late night television is the general term for television programs produced for broadcast during the late evening and overnight hours—most commonly shown after, if not in competition with, local late-evening newscasts; programs that have been showcased in the daypart historically (though not necessarily exclusively) encompassed a particular genre of programming that falls somewhere between a variety show and a talk show. Late-night shows predominantly cater to night owls, people suffering from insomnia, shift workers with irregular schedule assignments, younger male audiences and college students, along with spillover audiences through viewers of entertainment and news programs aired earlier in the evening.
For further information about the genre and programs broadcast in the late night daypart worldwide, see Late night television.
In the United States, the late night slot primarily encompasses the "late fringe" daypart leading out of prime time (and typically encompassing the half-hour to 35-minute "late news" slot associated with local and, in some cases, network late-evening newscasts), usually running after 11:00 p.m. and through 2:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time (ET/PT). A informal broader definition of the daypart includes the designated overnight graveyard slot (encompassing programs airing as late as 5:00 a.m. local time).
This article focuses on television programs, genres and other programming concepts common in American late night television, primarily focusing on programs typically shown on national broadcast and cable television networks and in syndication.
Regulation[edit]
"Safe harbor" watershed[edit]
The late night and overnight graveyard slots fall within the FCC's defined "safe harbor" period, exceptions to regulations normally prohibiting "indecent" material on broadcast television and radio that permit programming suitable only for mature or adult audiences to be broadcast between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time. While broadcast stations (which are licensed to broadcasters over publicly-owned airwaves, thus warranting stricter regulation of what material they can air) can legally air almost anything they want late at night and cable networks can at all hours, broadcast stations rarely offer and basic cable services tend to limit their carriage of indecent content to avoid reprimands from advertisers, and in the case of over-the-air broadcasters, the constant fluctuation of indecency standards to account for changes in public acceptance and FCC enforcement.[98]
The FCC attempted to eliminate the safe harbor provision in 1988, as directed by the United States Congress, however the proposed 24-hour ban on indecent material was stricken as unconstitutional by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in May 1991; the Telecommunications Act of 1992 re-established a safe harbor period from midnight to 6:00 a.m., before restoring the previous 10:00 p.m. watershed start following further D.C. Circuit rulings.[98][99][100][101]
Regulations on adult cable programming[edit]
Restricted-access cable-originated channels are not covered by the "safe harbor" regulations. Premium channels and pay-per-view services distributed through multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) are given considerably more leeway to broadcast material strong to graphic profanity, violence, nudity and sexual content as their revenue is generated through fees paid by subscribers (who receive their programming for an additional fee, usually in addition to a basic programming tier). The FCC does require pay television providers to completely scramble or block the video and audio portions of channels dedicated to sexually explicit material, or require them to transmit their programming only during the designated watershed hours when children are not likely to view it.[102][103][104]
Concerns over children hearing or seeing images of sexual content from adult networks resulting from signal bleed resulted in Congress including a provision into the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requiring cable providers carrying channels "primarily dedicated to sexually-oriented programs" to either fully scramble or block those channels, or to restrict their transmission to between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Section 505 of the Act, which was enacted based on a handful of complaints without a prior congressional hearing, was struck down in a 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group (2000), holding that it constituted a broad content-based restriction in violation of the First Amendment as the provision singled out specific types of programming and programmers, and that a separate provision (Section 504) allowing subscribers to request the scrambling or complete blocking of an adult channel was sufficient.[105][106][107][108][109]