On Tuesday night, Craig Ferguson delivered one of the most brilliant episodes of his five-year term at CBS's Late Late Show. The remarkably intimate show featured one long conversation between the host and British comedian-actor-author Stephen Fry and, for the first time in his run, no audience. Ferguson described the one-night change as a brave experiment in format, but now RadarOnline is reporting that the audience-less show was actually an experiment in cost-cutting.
According to RadarOnline's report, the 12:35 A.M. show relies on a third party to find and pay audience members to attend:
The Craig Ferguson Show is currently using a service for their audience procurement. They have 100 seats, of which 10 are reserved for house guests, and 30-40 members are through requests for tickets. The rest of the seats, about 50-60, are each paid for by the show. At around $20 per person, that's almost $1,000 per hour-long taping, which is one expensive laugh machine."
At present, no other network late-night show pays its studio audience members, although NBC was rumored to be casting fans to sit through the Tonight Show with Jay Leno's March 1 premiere. CBS has not yet commented.
· EXCLUSIVE: Craig Ferguson Show Paying Audience Members! [Radar]