ESPN president Burke Magnus has hinted that Jason Kelce’s late night talk show could be renewed beyond its initial five-week trial period.
The show, titled “They Call It Late Night With Jason Kelce,” has received mixed reviews and ratings since its launch earlier this month.
Kelce’s latest show takes its name from David Letterman’s legendary late-night offering and premiered on January 3 to a disappointing response from viewers.
The culprit could be the late start time or the content itself, but in any case, according to Puck’s John Ourand, the show only attracted 290,000 viewers during its first episode. ESPN had 700,000 viewers watching the same time slot two weeks earlier.
In the weeks that followed, viewers took to social media to comment on the show and its quality. One even labeled it “the worst in the history of television” after last week’s third episode.
But despite the brutal criticism, Magnus has hinted that Kelce’s show does have a future at the network.
ESPN executive Burke Magnus hinted that Jason Kelce’s late night talk show could be renewed
The show has received mixed reviews on social media since it started earlier this month
In conversation with The New York Timeshe said, “This isn’t something that I think would work for everyone, but he’s one of those guys that I think can pull it off.
‘For me it becomes more art than science
‘Do people think it’s good and funny? Does it have the potential to grow?’
ESPN and Kelce have always maintained that they would make a decision on its future once they evaluated the show’s five-week pilot period.
Ratings also increased in the following two weeks. It is claimed that 881,000 viewers watched episode two, which aired after a college playoff game, and the third episode brought in 356,000 viewers.
The Super Bowl winner and Philadelphia Eagles legend reportedly makes $1.8 million a year from ESPN, not including a $1 million signing bonus, according to a May report in the Sun.
That deal includes Kelce’s main duties on Monday Night Countdown and the five-episode limited series of his late night talk show.
Kelce’s ESPN deal also gave the network the right to buy Jason and his brother Travis’ popular podcast if they chose to sell before 2025, the Sun reported.
According to multiple reports, the brothers instead signed a $100 million podcast deal with Amazon for advertising and distribution rights to their show New Heights.