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It Turns Out Someone’s Counting the Number of Jokes Each Late-Night Host Has Made About Trump — Guess Who Leads the Pack?

May 4, 2017  •  Post A Comment

CBS’s Stephen Colbert may have gotten in trouble for a joke about Donald Trump, but when it comes to which of the late-night hosts is targeting Trump the most … why, it’s Colbert again.

The AP cites a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University that determined Trump is on pace to become the most joked-about president in late-night TV in at least 25 years.

“Trump has been the target of some 1,060 late-night jokes since taking office, the study said. That puts him on pace to beat President Bill Clinton’s record of 1,717 jokes in 1998, the year his affair with Monica Lewinsky was in the news,” the AP reports, citing Robert Lichter, the George Mason professor who directs comedy content research.

Colbert reportedly fired off 3.37 Trump jokes a day during Trump’s first 100 days in office. Colbert is credited with 337 Trump jokes since Trump’s inauguration, followed by Trevor Noah of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with 315 Trump jokes during the same stretch, then NBC’s Jimmy Fallon with 231 and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel with 177.

“The Trump-battering has paid off handsomely for Colbert and CBS,” the AP notes, citing Nielsen data for total viewers. “The ‘Late Show’ eclipsed Fallon’s ‘Tonight’ show in the ratings shortly after Trump’s inauguration and has now won 13 weeks straight. Last week CBS averaged 2.74 million viewers to Fallon’s 2.68 million, the Nielsen company said.”

Said Lichter: “The polarization of politics has migrated into the polarization of late-night humor. People want to hear jokes about the politicians they don’t like.”

4 Comments

  1. I am sick of all the jokes about President Trump – I have stopped watching the monologues because so many of the jokes are not based on facts and sad to say many of the viewers don’t listen to the real news stories and believe the late night comedians which are liberals and not giving the President the respect the office deserves. They are part of the reason our country has become divided they are poor losers.

  2. “Trump is on pace to become the most joked-about president in late-night TV in at least 25 years.” That’s because he’s the biggest joke of a “president” in history. Unfortunately for 10s of millions, the joke isn’t funny in the least.

  3. I cannot accept all the Trump twitter tweets as being serious. I long for “Late Night” comments for comic relief. I need to reassure myself that others saw what i saw and agree that Trump is truly incredible. Thanks to Colbert. Trevor, Kimmel. Fallon, Seth for making it possible for me to sleep ? at night. Thank you for keeping a laugh alive in this Time of Stress and political turmoi

  4. I guess that boycott of Colbert’s advertisers is just as disorganized as the Republican congress.

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