>>212401566 (OP)
They were both the victims of a changing media landscape
Podcasts were coming into their own as the prime medium people consumed their light-hearted interviews, the 2009 Writers Strike bodied the industry and wrecked late night shows who were largely obliged to go on without writers for months, the youth demographic that traditionally made up the core of late night audiences had been chipped away for decades over Videos, Cable and finally Youtube/Streaming. But the strike and the changing mediums ultimately led to the birth of Hulu, the eventual streaming wars and overall Millennials exit from the TV market and Zoomers complete not-existence in it.
Leno and Letterman had largely "aged with their audience" while never gaining too many Gen Xers and Millennials they kept the baby boomers that started watching them in the 80s and got enough young people to justify being around.
Now the late night shows are split between the Stephen Colbert style of trying to get a good trending meme that goes viral for CBS's respective media channels while getting old Daily Show viewers.
More traditional model of being a host who can pull off a few jokes while giving insightful enough 7 minute interviews and introducing a band to play their latest single.
So ironically to the thread, NBC ultimately conceded back to the traditional unoffensive guy who plays in Peoria model and CBS went to the "lets get the snarky millennials who want memes at midnight" model
