British comic James Corden is officially to succeed Craig Ferguson as host of CBS's "Late Late Show," completing a shakeup that began when Stephen Colbert was announced as the successor to David Letterman on the 11:35 p.m. "Late Show."
Corden has overcome an iffy reputation in his home country to win a Tony as an actor and launch a career stateside in film and, now, TV, but even his admirers may be a bit disappointed that, once again, a huge job in late night went to a white man. There has only ever been one woman to host a late-night talk show on one of the major networks -- the late Joan Rivers -- and the opportunity has, too, been closed off to people of color. With the five current late-night shows (both of CBS's shows, as well as NBC's Jimmy Fallon- and Seth Meyers-hosted franchises and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live") currently occupied by young men, too, it would seem that opportunities will be foreclosed for quite some time to come.
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