During his 11 years as the presenter of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon has always been an ideas machine, constantly devising new comedy segments, new products and even completely new programs. On one occasion, he proposed to the NBC a drama about a murderous priest who confesses himself, thus acquitting his soul of his sins. “They didn’t like it,” Fallon says with his risite characteristic. “So out of the ordinary for me, but you have to take advantage of those blows, man.”
The personal brand of the 51 -year -old comedian – combining an encyclopedic love for pop culture with his hyperentusa positivism – defined his night program of interviews and, in recent years, became an even more natural complement to competition programs that he produced, as “password” and “That’s My Jam”. It is a collection of works for which the NBC made it one of the best paid television presenters, with a contract that Forbes estimates at 16 million dollars annually.
That does not mean that Fallon is immune to the pressures of the structural decline of television. While Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of Late Night as the presenter of The Tonight Show for almost 30 years, Fallon occupies the third place in audience in his time slot (behind Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel), with an average of 1.2 million spectators per night, and the advertising income of the program decreased by 35% between 2022 and 2024, according to the ISPOT TV advertising data provider. The abrupt cancellation in July The Late Show with Stephen Colbert – which, according to CBS, lost 40 million dollars a year – led many to declare the imminent disappearance of the late night, which added an emergency level to the secondary works of Fallon.
In this turbulent panorama, on September 30 he launched on Brand with Jimmy Fallon, a new reality show of the NBC in the style of Shark Tank and The Apprentice, in which contestants without experience in Marketing present campaigns for large brands such as Pillsbury, Dunkin ‘and Southwest Airlines. The winning advertising campaigns will appear live the day after the broadcast of each episode, creating what Fallon expects is a symbiotic relationship with the brands that the program turns into a source of income. “It is a new type of program,” he says, “and I think it is also a new business model.”
Fallon has always had talent for branding. Its version of The Tonight Show is perhaps better known for its emblematic segments (“thanks notes”), games (“Russian egg with egg”) and singing sessions (“Lip synchronization battle”, which also became a derived program) that circulate widely on the Internet, where it has more than 100 million followers in Tiktok, Instagram and X, much more than any other than any other than any other Night programs presenter.
Outside the air, he collaborated in a series of extravagant products, including $ 195 shoes that change color when they wear out (“gobstompers”), pocket pajamas (“p’jimmies”, 78 dollars), covers for phones of 48 dollars (“pocket dials”), sun lenses that you can turn like a fidget spinner (“spinnies”, 95 dollars), a mountain Russian in Universal Orlando (“Race Through New York”), an ice cream flavor Ben & Jerry’s (“The Tonight Dough”), Super Survents Children’s Books (Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada) and an original Christmas songs album (Holiday Seasoning).
“If it were not for what it does today, Jimmy should have undoubtedly a marketing professional,” says Bozoma Saint John, former Marketing Director of Netflix and Uber brand director, who is a co -present of On Brand with Fallon. “It has a great capacity to take an idea and improve it. And that is, after all, what is marketing.”
Fallon’s most defined brand is still yours. Since he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 24 in 1998, he was characterized by his inability to suppress his joy, as in the back of iconic sketches as “More Cowbell.” When he left the program in 2004, the executive producer Lorne Michaels had already considered Fallon a born presenter of interview programs, and after a few years making mostly failed films such as Taxi (2004) and fever in the bets (2005), Michaels helped him get the night space he left vacant Conan O’Brien in 2009.
Fallon had a good performance in a crowded environment, and when Jay Leno gave up his throne in Tonight Show for the second and last time in 2014, the NBC moved the program back to its original headquarters in New York and appointed Fallon, then 39 years, as the sixth presenter of its history.
In those early years, his youth exuberance turned out to be gold in audience. Fallon averaged more than 4 million viewers in his first season, an amazing figure for current standards, and dominated night program for almost three years. Then, Colbert surpassed him after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, leaning strongly on partisan policy.
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Although Fallon usually makes fun of Trump, he is also famous for disheveling the future president in his program. “I think everyone should be able to laugh. That is, regardless of their political beliefs,” he says. “You have to make jokes. And sometimes it gets too close to one side, sometimes too much to another, but it is possible to maintain balance … it seems partial, but this guy has given us a lot to play.”
Fallon is just as a congraciator with his famous guests, often calling them “friends” or “classmates” and transmitting an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the projects they promote. “I have had guests who tell me: ‘I hope you haven’t seen this movie, it’s very bad,” he recalls. “I will simply say: ‘We don’t have to go into details. There is always something good in each project.”
Finding a ray of hope in the future of The Tonight Show requires equally overflowing optimism. Although last year generated the largest amount of advertising income (78.3 million dollars, according to ISPOT) in the category, the difference with its closest competitor has been reduced from 30 million dollars in 2022 to only 1.7 million dollars in 2024. and the huge number of Fallon followers in social networks does not compensate for revenue decrease. In September, NBC decided to reduce the program budget, going on to broadcast four days a week.
But do not rush to write the obituary of The Tonight Show. “As a means of communication, it is very valuable and very difficult to recreate,” says Veteran Media Analyst Jason Damata, Executive Director of the Marketing Average Marketing Agency, based in Los Angeles.
NBC agrees, for now, because this fall will broadcast four special episodes of Tonight Show on Sundays, using its most important program, Sunday Night Football, as a preamble. “Which is great,” says Fallon, “because it is practically the only program that people are watching on television right now.”
He assures that he will also be monitoring the audience rates of On Brand, but even more important for the success of the program will be the campaigns that he believes, which could attract brands to appear in future seasons.
“I want all the companies with which we work to analyze their current situation and then see where they are after On Brand,” he says. “I think their figures will rise, and that will show that the program is working.”
This article was originally published in Forbes US
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