Arsenio: There’s room for new late-night show

By Scott Collins

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES

The Dog Pound will woof again: Arsenio Hall is returning to late-night TV.

Two decades after his self-titled show rebuilt the talk genre for a new generation, the 56-year-old comic and recent “Celebrity Apprentice” winner will attempt a major comeback with a nightly syndicated offering starting in September 2013.

Hall is partnering with syndicator CBS Television Distribution and Tribune Co., which will broadcast the 11 p.m. show on 17 of its TV stations, including WGN-TV in Chicago and KTLA-TV in Los Angeles. Those stations, plus six major-market CBS-owned outlets and seven from station group Local TV LLC, will give Hall instant access to more than half the country. Tribune — which hopes to emerge from 31/2-year bankruptcy proceedings later this year — also owns or is a partner in scores of websites and operates eight daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.

“In the end, I’m a comic, and nothing fits the talk-show mode like a stand-up comic,” Hall said in a recent interview. Referring to the crowded field in late-night TV — which includes “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” as well as traditional venues such as “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” — he added: “I know there are a lot of shows, but I think there’s a space for my show.”

Hall’s earlier show was a surprise smash when it premiered in 1989, bringing a youthful energy and diversity to a format that had been dominated by Johnny Carson on NBC’s “Tonight” for nearly 30 years. His studio audience greeted the host by pumping their fists and barking, with the most devoted among them coming to be known as “The Dog Pound.”

Hall dispensed with the formidable desks that had been staples of talk shows everywhere and amiably chatted knee-to-knee with his guests as they relaxed in easy chairs. His status as the only black host in the regular late-night TV wars gave him special access to a burgeoning supply of African-American rappers (then just crossing over into the mainstream), comics and other entertainers, including Eddie Murphy, his costar in the hit comedy film “Coming to America.”

The show reached a peak 20 years ago this month, when sunglasses-wearing presidential candidate Bill Clinton famously blended retail politics and pop culture with a saxophone rendition of “Heartbreak Hotel.”

But the program suffered after CBS in 1993 hired David Letterman to host an 11:35 p.m. show that kicked Hall to an even later hour on many local stations. “Arsenio Hall” went off the air in 1994.

The explosion of cable programming — not to mention tablets, smartphones and DVRs — has upended the TV business since that era.

And the talk arena is filled to bursting: Chris Rock is executive producing a new show, and Russell Brand is set to join Conan O’Brien, Letterman, Leno and many others.

But CBS and Tribune are hoping that Hall can recapture his earlier magic.

“Can you duplicate that again? I don’t know anyone who knows that answer,” said Bill Carroll, vice president at New York-based Katz Television Group, which helps advise local TV stations on programming and other issues.

But he added that Hall’s appeal recently has proved to be intact: “People were reminded how engaging a personality Arsenio Hall was and is when he was on ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’”

Hall won Donald Trump’s reality competition last month.