Late Night Television in The United States - Cable Television

Cable Television

Two prominent late night-only cable and satellite channels currently air in the United States: Nick at Nite, a collection of primarily reruns of older and some recent network sitcoms that airs in the channel slot of Nickelodeon between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. ET. weeknights (the start time is subtracted by one hour on Fridays and two hours on Saturdays, due to programs aimed at pre-teens and young teenagers aired by Nickelodeon on those nights), and Adult Swim, a block of animated and a limited amount of live-action programming targeted toward young adults that shares space on the channel slot of Cartoon Network each night from 9 p.m.-6 a.m. ET.

In the 1980s, it was more common to split one cable television feed into two separate channels: one that aired during the daytime, and the other at night (this was a common method used by cable systems to account for limited channel space within their lineups prior to the advent of digital cable in the late 1990s, however in those cases, the providers switched between continuously-running channel feeds between dayparts). Prior to the launch of Nick at Nite, Nickelodeon aired the Alpha Repertory Television Service (ARTS) beginning in 1981, which eventually became known as A&E by 1984 and then became its own separate channel the following year. During the latter half of the 1980s, the Financial News Network broadcast carried the sports-oriented SCORE network during the nighttime hours; "FNN-SCORE" (as it was known collectively) was bought out by CNBC in 1991. From April 2002 to December 2007, one of Nickelodeon's digital spinoff channels was, similar to its parent channel, divided so that preschool-oriented programs would air during the day as "Noggin" and teen-oriented programs aired at night as "The N" (these two blocks are now their own separate channels, Nick Jr. and TeenNick, and both broadcast 24 hours a day). TeenNick itself launched a late night block of its own in July 2011, The '90s Are All That, featuring reruns of Nickelodeon programs from the 1990s and is aimed at young adults who watched these programs during that decade as children. Nick Jr. followed suit with the female-oriented block at NickMom in October 2012.

Jetix was an action-oriented nighttime block for children that ran on Toon Disney from 2004 to 2009 (the two entities have since been discontinued, with the channel having since relaunched as Disney XD); similarly from 1983 to 1997, Disney XD parent Disney Channel had a nighttime program block featuring family-friendly feature films and music specials aimed at adults known as "Disney Nighttime" from its 1983 debut until 1997, when it was replaced by Vault Disney, which offered classic Disney series and films (since the latter block ended in 2002, Disney Channel's late night programming has featured reruns of the network's preteen-skewing original series, occasional films and programs aimed at preschoolers; as such, Disney is the largest American family-oriented cable channel whose nighttime programming is not aimed at an older audience).

Late night talk shows, once exclusive to network television, have begun to be included on cable channels as well in recent years in part due to the success of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; other late night cable talk shows such as Conan, Lopez Tonight, The Colbert Report and Chelsea Lately have also proven successful; however, late night talk/variety programs on cable have a slight advantage over their broadcast counterparts as most of them typically air at 11 p.m. ET, at the same time that most local broadcast stations air their late evening newscasts and 35 minutes before the major networks begin their late night network programming. These shows also have the advantage of not being subject to Federal Communications Commission guidelines, though internal network standards generally result in these shows not being much more ribald than their network counterparts.

Premium channels often air softcore pornographic feature films and series during the late night hours (in addition to mainstream programs), containing simulated sexual intercourse and nudity that would likely not air during the daytime hours; Cinemax is the most notable pay service to carry programming of that genre, though most of the Showtime Networks (including Showtime and The Movie Channel) and HBO's multiplex channel HBO Zone have also carried (either presently or in the past) adult films or series; pay services operating similar to the pay-per-view model that feature pornographic content also exist such as Playboy TV and the more hardcore-formatted Spice Networks, these channels are typically sold by cable and satellite providers as nighttime-only packages despite typically operating on a 24-hour schedule. Most American cable channels often air either blocks of infomercials or time-shifted replays of prime time programming during late night time periods, while only a handful of basic cable channels (e.g., TNT, Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite, ESPN, etc.) air a round-the-clock schedule featuring entertainment programming during the overnight hours.