“Late Night With Seth Meyers” To Lose Band After Budget Cuts

The world of late-night may still be going strong, but it does look a bit different these days. More and more people watch clips the next day, as opposed to watching the shows themselves. Seth Meyers has also gone against the grain by ditching the traditional monologue and the suit and tie. But his show is about to make another big shift, we’ve learned.

Budget cuts are not uncommon at networks. In the midst of another budget cut at NBC, we learned this week that Late Night with Seth Meyers will be losing their house band, the 8G Band. The band - which is sometimes helmed by Fred Armisen - has been with Seth since his show first started 10 years ago.

The show will no longer feature live music at all, according to Vulture. Instead, the band will pre-record some music to play the guests on and off, as well as the theme song. The plan is to have them periodically go in and change the music as well.

“Sadly, it’s the reality of broadcast and a shrinking market — streaming eating into this, and YouTube eating into that,” band member Eli Janney told Vulture. “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.”

This change will take place in September, when the next season starts. This is also not the first time a late-night show has lost their band. Most notably, Conan O’Brien’s band left in 2018, after having been with him in 1993.

The shift says a lot about not just late-night, but the state of the industry. The industry has had a tough time bouncing back from last year’s writers and actors strikes. Hopefully, we see some positive change coming soon. But this is a sad moment for fans of Seth Meyers.