NBC Pulls Back ‘Tonight Show’ to Four Nights Per Week

The last of TV’s big five-original-nights-a-week late-night show is giving up 24 hours out of its schedule.

NBC will move “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to four nights a week, the latest in a series of moves across the late-night daypart aimed at shoring up the economics of the programs as audiences move away from watching TV in linear fashion. Like its late-night rivals, “Tonight” will air in repeats on Fridays.

CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” are already on a four-originals-per-week schedule.

NBC has been examining costs in late-night in recent months. Earlier this year, the network decided to eliminate the house band from Meyers’ 12:35 a.m. hour, a move that recently went into effect. But all of the networks have tested similar maneuvers in recent years.

NBC has gotten out of the business of programming a 1:30 a.m. slot it once filled with hosts like Bob Costas and Carson Daly. Comedy Central has given up on trying to devise a companion show to “Daily” that can follow the program after 11:30 p.m., and currently has Jon Stewart hosting the program once each week, with contributors such as Desi Lydic and Jordan Klepper filling in other days,. ABC has gone so far as to allow Kimmel to go on vacation for several weeks every summer.

Fallon has for the past few seasons kept on producing a Friday show even as his competitors gave up on the practice. He often taped two programs on Thursdays, one of which would air the next evening.

Johnny Carson never had to ponder whether or not to run an original show on each weeknight, but he also never had to contend with streaming services; DVRs; and clips of his late-night routines being disseminated via YouTube and Snap. The late-night shows have long served as something of a national pop-culture institution, but digital media allows the audiences who once tuned in around midnight to watch disambiguated clips from all the shows in manners of their own choosing. Even Carson, who had significantly less competition across the arc of his career, couldn’t stop that.

Fallon has a broader portfolio of projects — as do many of TV’s current late-night hosts. He will release a holiday album later this year; recently debuted a new children’s book; and has been involved in the production of various NBC game shows, such as “Password” and “That’s My Jam.”