Why is Tuesday pizza day for Stephen Colbert and his team? And why has it been for a few weeks now?
This time last year, Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” was losing to Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” by over a million viewers. However, when Trump became president, something happened for Colbert…there was a turning point for his show.
You can read this recent NY Times article for a hypothesis as to why this happened, but essentially, the turning point was a result of a three-hour heart-to-heart conversation between Colbert and his executive producer, Chris Licht.
And during that meeting, they made a deal…
“The deal was, he said, ‘Listen, let me make these decisions and don’t try to take them back from me,’” Mr. Colbert remembered. “And I said, ‘O.K., well, don’t debate with me what’s funny.’”
So Mr. Colbert focused on the comedy and his performance, and Mr. Licht dealt with management issues that the host had been expending energy on: staffing, budgets, sales meetings, the works. [1]
After that meeting, Colbert started to ease up and focus on the things that came naturally to him. Leaving the rest to others.
[Read more…] about Under Appreciating vs Over Celebrating