The broadcast network announced in February that 'Last Call With Carson Daly' would end after 17 years. NBC has found its next late-night host.
Comedian and YouTube star Lilly Singh is taking over the 1:30 a.m. spot currently occupied by Last Call With Carson Daly, which will make her the only woman with a late-night talk show on a broadcast network.
Her new show, A Little Late With Lilly Singh, is set to debut in September. The half-hour program will feature in-studio interviews and pre-taped comedy sketches and segments.
"An Indian-Canadian woman with her own late-night show? Now that is a dream come true," Singh said Thursday in a release announcing the news. "I'm thrilled to bring it to life on NBC, and I hope my parents consider this to be as exciting as a grandchild."
A taste of Singh's comedy can be found on her YouTube channel, ||Superwoman||, where she has amassed 14 million followers since she began posting videos eight years ago. The Ontario-born actress — who has appeared in HBO's Fahrenheit 451 and the 2016 film Bad Moms — regularly performs sketches in character and is known for a bit where she impersonates her parents, who emigrated from the Punjab region of India. The multihyphenate, who has written a book and toured with the stage show A Trip to Unicorn Island in 2015, came out as bisexual in February.
Singh, 30, announced her new series on Thursday's installment of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "To clarify, it's not Jimmy's slot," she joked, adding, "I'm so excited because I truly get to create a show from scratch." Singh likened the show to her YouTube channel, but said that now she'd have "more than three staff members and my sound guy won't also be an extra and won't also write the scripts."
READ MORE 'Last Call With Carson Daly' Ending After 17 Years on NBC NBC announced in February that Last Call With Carson Daly would end after 17 years. The broadcaster said Daly wanted to spend more time with his family but would remain involved with the network via The Voice and Today. Former Chelsea Lately host Chelsea Handler was considered a potential candidate to replace Daly, given her recently signed first-look deal with NBC. Singh joins Fallon and Late Night host Seth Meyers on the network's lineup. The three toasted to her role during her Tonight Show appearance Thursday (see photo, above).
"Lilly is truly a star and we're thrilled to welcome her to our NBC family," said Doug Vaughan, executive vp special programs and late night at NBC Entertainment. "She is a multi-talented performer who will surely have a great rapport with not only all her guests but also with our devoted late-night audience. We can't wait to get started."
