As the old saying goes, time waits for no man and CBS’ The Late Show host David Letterman is not waiting for time to catch up to him either. Thursday, the veteran talk announced he’d be retiring in 2015 from a position that has propelled him into a household name.
After starting as the host of Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, he’d move over to NBC to host Late Night with David Letterman in 1982. Counting down his 2,014 shows hosted on CBA and over 1000 done on NBC, last year Letterman surpassed former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson as the longest-serving late night host in the history of American television. Being in the game 31 years, his self-deprecating style colored comments made on Thursday night’s show.
"A year from now, I’ll be on a bench with a metal detector,” he quipped. “This weekend, my son is taking me to see senior centers.”
Adding, “My retirement will not become official until (Survivor host) Jeff Probst blows out my torch,” and “It’s been tough doing this show since Regis Philbin passed away,” David Letterman will turn 67-years-old on April 12. His announcement comes only months after former competitor David Leno of The Tonight Show retired.
Now the chatter of his best suited replacement has the media buzzing. Some believe the odds point to Craig Ferguson of CBS’ Late, Late Show, which is produced and distributed by Letterman's Worldwide Pants production company. But will his frenetic style be too much for that viewer demographic? Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report could certainly pull it off. He's funny, intelligent and spontaneous, but what would it take to lure him away from cable? With the competitors of Late Night opting for younger, hipper hosts (Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon), a prudent move for CBS would be to follow suit. But perhaps the first criteria of business is finding a really funny guy named “Jimmy” like all the others and taking it from there.
