So It Is Ratings Then?

The show Resident Alien is ending and its star Alan Tudyk says people don't watch TV at night any more. Maybe he should talk with the Late Show staff. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The news, opinions, commentary and interviews. You need to start
your day, and you're listening to the West Carrol Morning Show.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thursday morning, seventh day of August. I'm West Thanks for
joining me. Serious stuff to start the day with. And
it's sort of one of those stories that is gradually
developing and at the time of recording a few things
I can say about the shooting that took place yesterday
at Fort Stewart. Five soldiers were shot and other soldiers

(00:34):
who were nearby apparently reacted very quickly to this particular
soldier who was identified as a sergeant. I believe he
was a sergeant. Yes, sergeant Cornelius Bradford was his name
is his name. He was actually taken I guess, grabbed

(00:56):
by other soldiers who were nearby. Reports at least early
on have been that Radford a office, said Bradford. But
Cornelius Radford twenty eight years old, I guess out of
Florida and started shooting. I guess it's some of his
co workers, according to early reports, and some others who
were nearby, without hesitation, got him and took him into custody.

(01:21):
And that's kind of what we know at the beginning
as I'm recording this, I don't know that we have
a lot of confirmed other news. I know it's all
kind of coming in, but at the point of recording,
that's kind of what we know. And it was a
personal weapon that he had brought apparently on to Fort Stewart,

(01:41):
and exactly the reasons and everything behind it. I know
all that stuff is going to be coming out in time.
So the five that were shot, of course, our prayers
are with them their families, and you know, the initial
report comes out and they see casualties and what they
mean is that someone had been shot injured. That's what

(02:01):
the initial reports were yesterday. So obviously we're thinking of
them and we'll be praying for them, and that's what
our governor here in Georgia, Brian Kemp, has asked for
us to do. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers
and we'll get some answers, hopefully all the answers that
we can get in time about this particular case. All Right,

(02:26):
another thing that has happened, and I find this fascinating
because it's been a topic that has been something to
discuss since the announcement that the Stephen Colbert Late Show
was going to be canceled. So basically the report is

(02:49):
that in you know, Paramount is sort of they refer
to it for a while as sort of one of
the final bastions for as far as the smaller ownership,
not a mass and a giant, massive company, it was
getting there very quickly over time. And now of course

(03:11):
it's merged and become and that's what's really causing this
is when you have someone that buys into you, buys
into some debt, or buys into your company, and there's
this merger that takes place. And that happened at iHeartRadio.
A lot of folks lost jobs back in at twenty twenty.
There was blamed COVID for it really wasn't about COVID.

(03:34):
I mean, it was easy to just say, yeah, it's
because of cutbacks and COVID, but it was really about
getting the number of staff positions down, full time staff
down as low as possible so that this you know,
partnership could take place, this new company could come in
that was buying off debt that the company had and
just being real here for a minute, most of the

(03:55):
people that you hear on the radio on iHeartRadio, they're
not local, or if they are local, they've recorded it.
If they've showed up to record it at all, they
recorded something and it's playing and it's just me pulling
the curtain back. It had been that way for a while,
but it's just the reality of how things are in
that medium. So a company comes in and they buy

(04:21):
off debt or they buy into whatever the company is.
And in this case, Paramount, which you know, the company
that owned CBS and others, and they said, you know,
the late show, late night TV for us, they'd already
gotten rid of the late Late Show that was done.
So it became a situation where it was if it's

(04:43):
losing millions tens of millions of dollars a year, and
Stephen Colbert's budget is significant enough that they say, well,
why don't we just cut it out all together. We
can come up with something else to run in that
time slot and not morrhage money. The goal here is
to make money. The goal is to not hemorrhage money.

(05:05):
So viewership in late night TV had already been dropping
very quickly, I mean rapidly falling. And that's true on cable.
It's especially true on network. Maybe when the late Show
ends and it's got until I guess next summer before
it's going to end, and when it ends, maybe viewership

(05:29):
on the others will go up. I don't know. I
do know that the speculation for quite some time was
viewership in general the network TV was down, but also
the fact that there was no real effort being made
by any of the hosts on these shows to keep

(05:50):
the shows neutral and not alienate half of the audience.
And that is certainly a problem if you're trying to
keep your show on TV, right, if your goal is
to stay on, you want to keep your ratings up,
and if you're alienating half of the people that could

(06:13):
watch your show and they're not interested in hearing the
and I call it the let's go after Trump, the
low hanging fruit on the left, the things that they
feel are the normal mindless idiocy jokes that they can do.
Because it doesn't some of the jokes, you say, well,
they right themselves. Yeah, but it's because you've done everything possible.

(06:37):
Trump does a good enough job of making himself a
bit of a stereotype. Sometimes, you know, he is hyperbolic,
and that's one of the things that really has made
him interesting as a candidate. As a president, then as
a candidate again, as an ex president, candidate again, and

(06:59):
then president again. It's it's just part of the way
that he speaks, it's part of the way he does
his deliveries.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
So.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
That itself kind of fuels the low hanging fruit as
far as you know, we're going to make jokes about him.
The impressionists, the ones that do him well, they tap
into that. So you got shows where they're just basically,
you know, carrying water for the left. Stephen Colbert, I
think this week has already had you know, the I

(07:28):
guess the governor of Illinois on. I think that's who
he had on to just talk about the situation in
Texas and everything they were going to do to try
to counter what Texas was doing when it came to
jerry mandering and all that. You know, you got Jimmy Kimmel,
who the joke, and I don't doubt there's elements of
truth to it, but you know, there was a joke

(07:50):
for a while that Jimmy Kimmel was just getting talking
points from Chuck Schumer like here's what we want you
to talk about tonight, Here's what we want you to
talk about out this week, here's what you got, because
it certainly felt like that was happening. He was in
lockstep with whatever the messages were every week. People on
the right don't want to watch that. I have no

(08:12):
interest in it. And I've got a friend in Australia
who said, I figured Kimmel might be the one that
you watched, and I was like, I don't watch any
of those. I don't watch any of them. There was
a stretch where I could kind of watch Foulin a
little bit, but even he got pressured into being more political.
So the ratings on those shows are down period, and

(08:32):
some think that it's probably because they've cut out half
of the audience. Ratings are down on shows like The
Daily Show, which at one point at its peak back
when Stuart was the main host. I think he's come
back now to try to save it and try to
be the other martyr whenever Colbert finally officially gets fired.
And then now we've got Howard Stern, who is become

(08:55):
the latest victim of not being able to hold an audience,
or not able to hold enough of an audience. As
Sirius XM has said, we're going to end the contract
with Stern that report came out yesterday, a lot of
folks saying, well, another classic example of somebody who has
become a shill for the left. Stern used to be

(09:16):
a rebel. Stern used to be you know, punk rock, right,
I mean, that's what he was. And then suddenly now
he's just regurgitating MSNBC talking points And there's nothing punk
rock about that. There's just nothing punk rock about it.
I don't it's you know, you were that guy and

(09:37):
now you're not that guy anymore. And you know, maybe
with age things change, but let's be honest. You went
from fighting the system to being the system, or at
least a mouthpiece for the system. So again another casualty
of all of this. And at the very least, you're
talking about somebody who can't hold that audience versus Joe Rogan,

(09:57):
who probably took a lot of that audience ants away.
That's my speculation. I don't have any hard cold facts
on it. I can't sit here and quote you any
of the statistics on that. But I can tell you
that if you're looking for that guy, you're going to
Joe Rogan, or you're going to one of the you know,
THEO Vaughn or you're going to one of these shows,

(10:18):
these other podcasts that are going to give you a
very much more I don't want to say it again,
but the much more punk rock kind of attitude about
all of it. That's what you're going to get from them,
and it's just different. You might not be getting cold,
hard facts. You might be getting, you know, a lot
of wild theories and things that maybe sound like conspiracy

(10:40):
theories and then later they go it turns out it
was right, or it continues just to be conspiracy theories.
You're going to hear a lot of different perspectives and
views from Joe Rogan and his show. Some of them
are way out there, but it's an opportunity at least
to hear them, and it's not just talking points for
one side or the other. So now I would like

(11:04):
to enter also into this discussion because we went through
this phase about Stephen Colbert. Oh, this is just about
Trump getting his feelings hurt. This is about the fact
that Trump got his feelings hurt and he had the
lawsuit with CBS because let's be honest, sixty minutes CBS
they tried to edit interviews and they tried to edit

(11:26):
content to make Trump look worse, make Kamala Harris look
like a viable candidate, and it still didn't work because
you can't edit out the word salad interviews for Harris
and then fix it up, or you can't edit out
things that Trump said to make him look worse. This
has become a really dangerous place we've gotten to when

(11:50):
it comes to doing that. This is what we got,
this is what people are doing now. It's full on
Running Man. If you remember then the and I assume
it's the same in the book. I didn't read the book,
but in the movie The Running Man, right at the beginning,
you got Schwarzenegger's character, who is you know, he's the cop.
He's flying the helicopter. He gets orders he's supposed to
shoot up a crowd of people, and he says, you know,

(12:12):
I'm not gonna shoot up those people, and then it's
edited to like I'm gonna shoot those people. Ah, and
you know, they make him look like he's the criminal.
And because he's not following orders, then they you know,
prosecute him for plowing down all those people because they
knocked him out, and somebody else shot down the people
and killed him gave him an easy scapegoat at that point.

(12:33):
So that's what we're doing. And because people say, well
that happened, so Trump has gone behind the scenes and
forced CBS to cancel this show. And you know, that's
what a lot of people on the left wanted. And
that's died down now that that immediately has has changed focus.
It went to Epstein and then it went to the
jerry mandering in Texas. So now we enter into this conversation.

(13:00):
Another show that has been canceled, as the show Resident
Alien is getting ready for its final season and they
were told that they're not going to be coming back.
And Alan Tudic, who is the star of Resident Alien,
and I haven't mentioned the Dragon Con pregame show yet,

(13:21):
there's a past episode of the dragon Con pregame show
where I interviewed Alan Tudic, had a great time getting
to know him, spent some time with him at dragon Con,
not only a couple times out on the floor, but
at one of the parties. Had a great time getting
to spend that time with him, getting to know him.
Funny guy, he's a far left guy. Absolutely, Just for context,

(13:43):
I followed him for a little while on social media's
and I went, eh, again, I don't need to see that.
I don't need to hear that, the low hanging fruit
type content. But that's fine. He can do whatever he
wants to do. I don't fault him for it. I
think he's a very talented actor. He's very funny. I loved,
you know, Dodgeball, Steve the Pirate. I was a big

(14:04):
fan of his, this show, Resident Alien. He's K two
s O and the Star Wars Rogue one, as well
as the Andor series, and he's I think he's great.
I think he's a great actor. I think he's funny.
Death at a Funeral the British version of it, he

(14:25):
was in that. Just a lot of great stuff, Just
a lot of great stuff, all right. So con Man,
by the way, very short series. I guess you could
still find it online. I'm sure that he did little
like three four minute episodes. And it's a quasi I mean,
it's got elements of it's not really biographical, but in

(14:45):
the sense that Seinfeld was kind of biographical the way
that show was done. But anyway, I like him a
lot and I had a great time interviewing him, is
the point. But I'm only mentioning his politics, so that
you can understand the way. We've got somebody on the
left that has made this statement about the cancelation of
Resident Alien, and he basically said that now content and

(15:09):
I think it was at San Diego Comic Con he
was interviewed and he was talking about the fact that
people now aren't watching TV between eight and eleven o'clock
or eight and midnight or whatever. I think he said
eight and eleven. They're looking at their phone, they're watching
short form content, they're scrolling through with their thumb. They're
not watching TV, Primetime TV, ten o'clock TV. I guess

(15:31):
late night TV would fall into this too, but he's
specifically saying, look, this is the explanation for why our
show was coming to an end. People aren't watching TV
in the evenings. They're looking at their phones. They're in bed,
they're looking at their phones, you know, or they're sitting
in a chair and they're looking at their phones. They're
not watching TV. And he's explaining why as a network

(15:56):
that this is something that this is where things went
side network says we're not going to renew the show.
And the show's really funny, by the way, largely because
of him. He's great at doing the fish out of
water thing, and the premise is he's an alien on earth.
He can make himself look like a human and he's
trying to fit in, and it's fish out of water.
It's all that. It's very funny, but you knew it

(16:19):
was probably limited with its run on Sci Fi Network.
I didn't know how long they'd be able to keep
it going. And he basically said, look, not enough people
are watching, we can't sell the sponsorships, and they can't
keep the show going. That alone is the explanation for
why Colbert and I guess Howard Stern are going bye bye.
That at least from their current jobs, they'll probably find

(16:42):
other things to do. I'm sure, but there's your explanation.
We can try to make this about politics all we
want to, but the reality is, if people are spending
more time on their phones and less time actually staring
at a physical TV, and then factor in what little
bit of audience is left, you're giving them an option
that's one sided. I suppose when it comes to Colbert

(17:04):
and Stern, you're really gonna limit yourself on how many
people are going to watch. And I thought that was
an interesting take to hear that coming right off the
heels of well, it's just about Trump and getting his
feelings hurt, when in reality, it's about ratings. Today's show
brought to you by Columbus State Universities Coca Cola Space
Science Center, inspiring and educating the youth and future STEM

(17:29):
leaders and STEM career holders that really of all ages.
I mean they do it for school age kids as
school age kids visit the Coca Cola Space Science Center,
but they also do it through their university programs where
you can learn engineering, astronomy, physics, and the careers in
space and STEM fields are booming right now, and you

(17:52):
can learn more about maybe getting your degree on their
website CCSSC dot org. While you're there, also check out
some of their upcoming programs. They've got this incredible collaboration
that they do with the Schwob School of Music from
Columbus State University called Music under the Dome. It's unlike

(18:13):
any concert experience that you can get anywhere else. It's
one of those things that when you're watching it in Columbus, Georgia,
you think, is this really in Columbus Georgia. I mean,
this is a major city attraction that happens right here
in Columbus inside the planetarium at the Coca Cola Space
Science Center, and the new season of Music under the Dome.

(18:36):
Check out upcoming dates for the shows, and also check
out when the next Astronomy Night's coming up. Where you
can get outside. Sometimes you do it at the Cocola
Space Science Center. Sometimes you get outside somewhere outside the
city lights. You don't want any light interference, and you
can do that as well upcoming Astronomy Night events. Also
on their website, it's CCSSC dot org. As cruise and

(19:00):
says Charlie Charlie SamSam Charlie dot org, I just remind
you that it stands for Coca Cola Space Science Center
CCSSC dot org. Today's show brought to you by Overhead
Door Company of Columbus. For all of your garage door needs,
commercial or residential. Maybe you have regular maintenance that it's

(19:22):
time for. It's always good to get maintenance on anything
that has parts that move and have electronics. The folks
at Overhead Door Company of Columbus can take care of
squaring that away for you, and while they're there, you
can always ask them questions about some of the maybe
cosmetic changes you'd like to make to your garage door.
Maybe your curb appeal isn't quite what you want it

(19:44):
to be, and you need some repair work done to
the outside door. Maybe you need a brand new garage
door completely. Maybe it's making a noise when your garage
door opens and closes. Maybe it's some sort of installation
issue that you've got. With colder or warmer weather, sometimes
that stuff gets in and it's inconvenient. Maybe you're looking
at a situation where you'd like to add a screen

(20:06):
door to your garage door system that you can put
down and you can use your garage space as a
sort of outdoor but indoor. You know, if you like
to work on your own cars in there, or maybe
you just want a little man cavid you'd like to
be able to open the door up and not invite
all the insects in. They can do that for you
as well, and again they do after hours calls. There's

(20:27):
nothing worse than that thought of having your car trapped
inside your garage and your garage door won't open and
you need somebody to come help, And they do those
as well. Seven oh sixty five eight forty five hundred
seven oh six three five eight forty five hundred O
dccolumbus dot com more West Carol Morning Show right after
the break.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Well.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
It seems that the end of cookbooks could be soon.
A new survey says that most gen zers get their
recipes from social media rather than cookbooks, cooking shows, or
family and According to the survey, seventy two percent of
eighteen to twenty seven year olds get their meal inspiration
from places like TikTok, Instagram, and others, compared to thirty

(21:18):
two percent who turn to cookbooks, forty five percent who
turn to family and friends. Influencers have more impact on
the food choices than professionals. Forty four percent say they
trust influencers for food content, compared to thirty nine percent
who look to professional chefs and thirty four percent who
tune into cooking shows. That's interesting, isn't it all?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Right? Well?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
This is new, seems some stressed out young adults in
China are turning to a very classic but unusual stress reliever,
at least for adults, adult pacifiers. Anxiety on the rise, money, work, relationships,
sleep problems. Some are finding comfort in the nostalgic act
of sucking on a pacifier. Users say it's calming, oddly, satisfying,

(22:04):
and apparently it helps some people sleep better. The trend
is getting some traction online influencers and users sharing their
pacifier picks and stress busting routine. Psychologists explain it as
a regression phenomenon. The idea is that when people are
faced with extreme stress and insurmountable problems, they tend to

(22:26):
unconsciously regress to an earlier age of development, the pacifier
symbolizing the security and comfort of infancy. How about that
it's hot out, but fall is coming, and that means yes,
it's not too far away. Pumpkin spice season, Pumpkin spice

(22:46):
Everything will soon be filling up grocery shelves and coffee
shops with the original pusher of the spice, Starbucks bringing
it back on August twenty sixth with its Fall menu,
just a few weeks away from the Fall menu with
pumpkin spice at Starbucks. Duncan is officially or has not

(23:07):
officially announced when they're bringing theirs back, but most fast
food influencers have pegged it as August twentieth, along with
its full Fall menu, which includes glazes, Pumpkin Donuts, pumpkin munchkins,
pumpkin muffins, Krispy Kream's pumpkin spice items are expected sometime
in mid September. I liked it. You got this little

(23:27):
battle between Starbucks and Duncan, and then you got Krispy
Kreme going like, we'll get there when we get there.
Just be patient. We'll get there. When we get there,
you'll be just fine. Right, you just hang in there
and give us some time, and we'll let you know.
We're not gonna rush into this. This summer, there's been

(23:49):
backlash by some car rental customers. AI has been used
by companies like Hurts to electronically scan cars for damage
and then charge extra. Now it looks like some hotel
are getting in on the action. They're using AI audit
systems to scrutinize hotel room checkout bills, could end up
saving some customers' money. There are also ways for the

(24:10):
system to squeeze money out of guests. When installed, AI
gadgets to detect air quality problems and trigger fines for
smoking or vaping in rooms. For now, the AI is
just collecting information, but we're getting close to the system
being able to detect damage or were in a room
and could also trigger extra charges, so keep an eye

(24:32):
out on that if you're staying in one of them
fancy hotels. We're still you know, mentioned the pumpkin spice
coming soon. Costco is jumping the gun now on Octoberfest beers,
so I guess we're all dealing with hot summer. So
Costco many locations across the country have already started selling

(24:55):
those seasonal beers, the Octoberfest ones, the sam Adam's Octoberfest
and others. So I mean, when it's hot, people like
to drink beer, so just getting an early start. I
guess they're beating out even Starbucks on that. So all right,
that'll do it for this Thursday edition of the show.

(25:17):
Thanks to our sponsors and patrons. Thank you for listening.
I'll catch you back here tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
This is the West Carrol Morning Show powered by Overhead
Door Company of Columbus, the Holiday In Resort in Panama City,
and CSU's Coca Cola Space Science Center.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Overhead Door Company of Columbus has all of your garage
door needs covered, residential and commercial service and repairs. If
you need a new garage door or you're just looking
to upgrade or repair your current door Overhead Door Company
of Columbus has you covered. Plus they've got your emergency
repairs or service covered as well. Seven oh six three

(25:56):
five eight forty five hundred seven oh six three five
eight forty five hundred odccolumbus dot com. Get ready for
dragon Con twenty twenty five Labor Day weekend downtown Atlanta
with the dragon Con Pregame Show coming August twenty third
and twenty fourth to a radio station near you if

(26:16):
you live in the state of Georgia or one of
the states near enough to the State of Georgia to
pick up a radio signal coming from the network of
stations in the State of Georgia that'll be carrying the show,
and there are many in Alabama and Tennessee and the
Carolinas that'll have a chance to hear it even down
into Florida. Or simply listen to it on the dragon

(26:37):
Con Pregame Show podcast. Wherever you listen to your podcast, yes,
where you're listening to this podcast. You can also find
past editions of the dragon Con Pregame Show podcast with
interviews with William Shatner other stars from Star Trek, The
Walking Dead, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, many animated stars, some

(26:59):
of your favor Disney stars. Chances to hear interviews with them,
and this year's dragon Con pregame show will drop to
the podcast on August twenty third, and you can hear
this year's interviews. It's sponsored by Columbus State University's Coca
Cola Space Science Center, where doctor Sean Cruisin and I
often like to discuss the science behind the science fiction

(27:24):
and the connections between where science fiction sometimes leads to
science science sometimes leads to science fiction. It's just a
weird connection that's already there. It's built into it. And
I say it's weird, but it's really not. It makes
perfect sense. The two go together very well. Learn more
about the Coca Cola Space Science Center at CCSSC dot org.

(27:45):
Learn more about this year's dragon Con the website, which
is DragonCon dot org