Lilly Singh, who hosted the NBC’s late night talk series “A Little Late with Lilly Singh,” opened up about the downfall of her show, saying that she believes the production wasn’t set up to succeed.
“I don’t think any part of it was set up to really be successful,” Singh told Julia Cunningham during an appearance on her SiriusXM series “The Julia Cunningham Show.” At the time, Cunningham was applauding Singh’s effort with the late night program, but noted that she heard it was an “undertaking,” adding that she didn’t want to say Singh was “set up to fail.”
Singh explained that from the very jump, her talk show faced unique challenges, including an extreme filming schedule.
“In the first season, because of budget, resources, all the things, I shot X amount of episodes in three months. Guess the number,” Singh said.
“I bet 52 weeks worth. I have no idea the number,” Cunningham responded.
“Ninety-six episodes,” Singh answered. “Ninety-six episodes in three months. Not the cutest schedule.”
While Singh said she doesn’t think anyone blatantly wanted to sabotage her, she expounded on the differences in how her series was handled compared to other programs.
“Late night shows are supposed to be timely and season one, when those 96 episodes were releasing, of course a global pandemic hit, so now I’m the only show that has a live audience,” Singh said. “I’m talking about traveling. I’m talking about parties during the late night episodes and people are like, “What’s going on?” And then the second season also released during the pandemic, so it was Zoom interviews.”
She continued: “So, I had two pandemic seasons of a late night show, half the writer’s room of everyone else, and half the budget and honestly, I’m so grateful ’cause I feel like I can do any schedule and I learned so much, but yeah, it was really tough.”
When asked how Singh sustained her momentum to perform, Singh admitted that it was a struggle that consisted of emotional breakdowns.
“Two to three shows a day,” Singh said. “A lot of crying, a lot of therapy. I just really tried my best. I knew what a big deal it was and how important it was, and I felt so much pressure to not let people down … One of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life.”
Singh shared that she’s not sure if she’d want to take on another talk show but stated “never say never.”
“If any show that’s a daily type of show would come up to me, I would be better equipped to ask better questions,” Singh said. “Talk to me about the budget. Talk to me about the schedule. Talk to me about like any contingencies, any plans, like there was just so many questions I would’ve asked.”
She concluded her thoughts with a note that talk shows also need to be given more time to find their groove and audience.
“To have two seasons and be like, ‘All right.’ You haven’t really established a brand or a tone or a voice or an audience yet,” Singh said. “Another thing I would make sure happens is you gotta commit to this for like five seasons. If you actually want this to be a thing, you gotta give us the space to figure it out a little bit.”
“A Little Late” premiered on Sept. 16, 2019 and had two seasons before NBC canceled it on May 6, 2021.
