After reading about the all-male Vanity Fair profile of late-night talk show hosts, and reading about how upcoming talk show host (and Daily Show alum) Samantha Bee criticized the profile, I looked at the full list of all late-night series ever hosted on American television to find just how many have been hosted by women.
This is quite a glass ceiling. Most series hosted by women, usually veterans of stand-up comedy, have been cancelled within two seasons or less, with the exception of Chelsea Handler’s multi-season run on E! Network. And this is out over a hundred or more series hosted over the decades by men. Here’s the full list:
- Joan Rivers (The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, 1986-1987)
- Dr. Ruth Westheimer (Ask Dr. Ruth, 1987)
- Whoopi Goldberg (The Whoopi Goldberg Show, 1992-1993)
- Stacy London (Fashionably Late with Stacy London, 2007)
- Chelsea Handler (Chelsea Lately, 2007-2014)
- Wanda Sykes (The Wanda Sykes Show, 2009-2010)
- Mo’Nique (The Mo’Nique Show, 2009-2011)
- Kathy Griffin (Kathy!, 2012-2013)
- Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer (Nikki and Sara Live!, 2013)
- Grace Helbig (The Grace Helbig Show, 2015-)
- Samantha Bee (Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, 2016-)
