The Disheartening Late Night Stand-Up Demographics

In the wake of the infamous profile of Letterman’s former stand-up booker Eddie Brill, The Comic’s Comic looked at late night television’s stand-up bookings for the first six months of 2012. The numbers aren’t ideal. He found that of the 46 stand-up performers on Conan, Letterman, Ferguson, Fallon, Leno, and Kimmel 37 were white men, seven were men of color, and two were women. (It should be noted that he missed both Hannibal Buress and Dwayne Perkins who performed on Conan.) For anyone who watches a lot of stand-up, it’s hard to justify that discrepancy. This isn’t an “Are women funny?” issue, it’s a “Who are these bookers?” issue. It needs to get better. For what it’s worth, in July, Conan has had three stand-ups on the show and two stand-ups perform as part of his new After-Hours Stand-Up web series. Of those, three were women and only one was a white male. And all five totally killed it.

The Disheartening Late Night Stand-Up Demographics