Host of "Late Late Show" pays tribute to YouTube
After James Corden took over "The Late Late Show" on CBS, he found an unexpected partner: YouTube. It turned out to be a valuable two-way street, benefiting both sides. Corden went to YouTube's unique video space in Los Angeles for a special broadcast of his show, CBS News' Ben Tracy reports.
More than one billion people now visit YouTube every month. In the past decade, it has become synonymous with facile felines, medicated minors and biting brothers. To celebrate YouTube's 10th birthday, Corden paid tribute to the Tube.
Corden is now the first late night host to broadcast his show from YouTube Space LA, a massive 41,000 square foot complex built to help Internet artists create new content for the site.
By taking his show there, Corden is acknowledging the importance of viral videos to his late night success.
"I think we hit like 200 million views on YouTube in 50 shows," Corden said. "We grew at a rate that no one thought we would."
When Corden debuted back in March, he was a relatively unknown British guy, but he's quickly become an online sensation.
His Tom Hanks career retrospective racked up 13 million views, and 32 million have watched Corden's Carpool Karaoke with Justin Bieber.
"What's great about the world today, if you do something that people like, they'll share it with their friends and it will start to have a wider reach," Corden said. "And it's wonderful to make a show that isn't constrained by timeslot."
"There can be no doubt that a lot of our success has been people sharing clips online, people watching us on YouTube, and that's not lost on us," "Late Late Show" executive producer Ben Winston said.
Which is why choosing to do a traditional TV show at an Internet studio is more than just ironic.
"I think this strategy is very smart," Hollywood Reporter executive editor Matthew Belloni said. "The currency of late night television has shifted in the past few years. It used to be about owning the late night conversation. Now it's about owning the next day conversation online."
Corden used his time at YouTube to feature a slew of Internet stars, including The Slow-Mo Guys, who blow things up, a fashion and makeup vlogger, who helped him look a bit more Barbie, and the creator of Epic Rap Battles of History.
"They want ratings, and they want people to watch there, but they want people to talk about the shows, and they want to be in the national conversation, and the way to do that these days is to own the Internet," Belloni said.