NBC scales back The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in latest blow to late night TV

Network also recently announced it was cutting the house band from ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’ due to budget cuts

NBC is officially cutting back The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from five nights a week to four, with reruns airing on Friday nights.

The major decision comes just months after the network announced it was eliminating the house band from Late Night with Seth Meyers due to budget cuts.

For the past few seasons, Fallon has consistently taped new Friday night episodes despite his competitors, including ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CBS’s The Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, only taping four each week.

Late Night with Seth Meyers has also only been airing four original episodes weekly.

As late-night viewership has declined in recent years, networks have been forced to take these money-saving measures.

“Sadly, it’s the reality of broadcast and a shrinking market – streaming eating into this, and YouTube eating into that,” Late Night with Seth Meyers’s associate musical director Eli Janney said in June of the budget cuts.

“Streaming is not making money, either. So budgets everywhere have been cut and cut and cut. I liken it to a Spotify moment in music, where suddenly it’s like, nobody wants to pay for music. Music gets devalued.”

Jimmy Fallon will no longer tape new Friday night shows (Getty Images)

Still, earlier this year, Fallon’s show was renewed by NBC to run through 2028.

49-year-old Fallon first joined The Tonight Show in 2014, taking over hosting duties from Jay Leno following his retirement.

He was previously a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998 to 2004. Fallon has since expanded his late-night portfolio to include NBC game shows Password and That’s My Jam.

He’s also authored several books and most recently published his latest children’s book, 5 More Sleeps ‘til Halloween.

Last month, the host brutally mocked Australian breakdancer Raygun, who faced backlash for her non-conventional moves at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Raygun, real name Rachel Gunn, has since spoken out about the widespread criticism of her routine, saying she knew that “people were not gonna understand my style and what I was gonna do.”

“I wanted to bring out some Australian moves and themes. I love our Olympic mascot BK, the boxing kangaroo, and I wanted to show that. That’s the wonderful thing about breaking. You can take inspiration from any source,” she said in an interview on Australian news show The Project.

New episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon air Monday through Thursday on NBC at 11:35pm.