Comedian Katherine Ryan has opened up about female representation in television, critcising the lack of female hosts of late-night chat shows in the UK.
The standup comic appeared on Grace Dent’s Comfort Eating podcast recently, where she claimed that men are more commonly given late-night hosting gigs, whereas women are featured more on daytime TV.
She spoke about being raised in Canada before moving to the UK in 2008 when she was 25, saying that she “grew up” with the idea of men more frequently hosting late-night shows compared to women.
“I thought that either myself or any of my female peers could have a late-night chat show in this country. I think Sarah Millican had one for a little while, not any more,” she answered when asked about being prevented from certain jobs.
“And I think for whatever reason, women are sometimes relegated to daytime and then the boys do all the late-night chat shows,” she continued.
The format has been historically dominated by men, with The Graham Norton Show and The Jonathan Ross Show currently being the UK’s biggest chat shows. Other hosts of past late-night shows included Alan Carr, Paul O’Grady and Michael Parkinson.
Equally in the US, the most popular late-night shows are hosted by men, including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers.
While there are some successful female-led chat-shows in the US, stemming from the likes of The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, these typically take place during the daytime.
The Drew Barrymore Show, which has featured a variety of celebrity guests and picked up multiple awards, including an MTV Award for Best Host, is limited to a daytime broadcast.
Meanwhile in the UK, stars like Davina McCall and Charlotte Church have had brief stints hosting late-night chat shows in the mid 2000s. Church’s show was cancelled after three seasons, while McCall’s only lasted eight episodes.
Speaking further on what she’d like to see on UK late-night TV, Ryan said: “I love to see the format of, like, standing, topical, powerful, monologue, comedy monologue, and then sit down and chat.”
“But that’s just because it’s what I grew up on, and I would love to see it with a really good outfit.”
Elaborating on her views about women in comedy, Ryan said: “These expectations are what softness and femininity mean in an industry where you and I are very alpha, and I think I’ve always said it’s a misconception to think that standup is masculine – standup is just alpha, and some women are alpha. And so what does that mean? It sends people into a bit of a tailspin.”
In other news, Ellen DeGeneres has opened up about her chat show coming to an end in 2022 after allegations of workplace toxicity were made.