Themes and Topics Selection Criteria in Russian and American late-night TV shows

<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The late-night show genre is gaining more and more popularity. This concept is to combine both information and entertainment components and to represent a new infortainment genre on the Russian TV. In 2013 TV channels other than Channel One began to show their interest in the late-night show genre: a new type of show based on the similar concept which had appeared on NTV.&nbsp;</span></p><p class="p2"><span class="s1">This format is a subgenre of the usual talk show, but it has some distinctive features. Among these features we can distinguish: monologues on the current topics in which show hosts make fun of the news of the day, interviews with celebrities and musical performances. The genre of late-night show has existed for more than 20 year in the USA. Long before it was acknowledged both as the source of news for those who for some reasons do not watch traditional news shows, and as a ground for the debates during the presidential elections: more than 20% of young Americans aged 18-29 rely on late-night talk shows as the source of the information about the presidential candidates (years 2004 and 2008).&nbsp;</span></p><p class="p2"><span class="s1">The purpose of this paper is to find the differences between the topics selection criteria in Russian and American late-night shows.</span></p><p class="p2"><span class="s1">American and Russian late-night shows such as &laquo;The Tonight Show With Jay Leno&raquo;, &laquo;The Late Show With David Letterman&raquo;, and &laquo;Jimmy Kimmel Live!&raquo;, &laquo;Evening Urgant&raquo; were chosen as the objects of the thesis.</span></p><p class="p2"><span class="s1">Actually, the late-night show genre was not investigated by Russian mass communication and culture researchers due the fact that it was not represented on the Russian TV in the form it exists on the American TV.</span></p><p class="p2"><span class="s1">Basing on the obtained results we can draw a conclusion that current Russian late-night shows cannot be considered as completely informational ones, as:</span></p><ul><li class="p4"><span class="s1">important political and economical news is not discussed, show makers prefer to cover entertainment and show business news;</span></li><li class="p4"><span class="s1">Russian politicians and public figures do not visit entertaining shows as guests<b>;</b> this can be explained by the differences between Russian and American political culture, and by the lack of political competition);</span></li><li class="p5"><span class="s1">the most important criteria for the news selection is the ability to make a content that will amuse the audience;</span></li><li class="p4"><span class="s1">show makers agree that Urgant show has no purpose to create the real information picture of the day , as entertaining role prevails over the informational one.</span></li></ul><p class="p2"><span class="s1">The hypothesis of the&nbsp;</span>undergraduate thesis&nbsp;is valid: Russian and American late-night shows are not full-fledged information programs and can not be used to form picture of the day.</p>