Changes Ahead for RSA News
As Craig Ferguson ends his time as host of The Late Late Show, he’ll be proud of the work he’s done, but we suspect he’ll be a bit relieved as well. To perform at such a high level every night on a national television broadcast requires tremendous energy, and would wear down even the most hearty soul. After a long run on the popular sitcom The Drew Carey Show, which continues to run in syndication, immediately followed by ten years hosting a network talk show, plus an active stand up comedy schedule, two books, numerous screenplays and many on-screen and voice acting credits to his name, he’s earned a chance to take a step back from the daily grind.
Craig will stay busy
Of course, he’s not stepping back too far. His new game show runs at least through the summer of 2015 and hopefully much longer if the show continues to draw enough audience to keep the advertisers happy. He’s executive producing the series I F-ing Love Science for the Science Channel as well, and there are rumors he may host a syndicated talk show starting next fall. Stay tuned for more news on that. He’ll continue to do stand up comedy, he’ll continue to write and he’ll continue to produce television and film projects for the foreseeable future. We’re going to be hearing plenty from him after his time on The Late Late Show ends in December.
But the biggest difference will be no longer having the pressure of doing a “live” show every weeknight. As effortless as Craig could make it look, creating an hour of television every day is hard work for a big, talented team of people. With the kinds of projects Craig will be doing after December, the daily demands on his time will be fewer. He’ll be able to tape multiple episodes of the game show in short bursts, with time off in between. He’ll have time to pursue the behind-the-scenes work of producing other projects and finally give himself the luxury of time. He can try new projects, travel and spend time at home with his family.
Finding a new balance
Because the daily talk show is coming to an end, because the game show has long breaks between tapings and because more of Craig’s focus will be on behind-the-scenes work out of the public eye, we suspect that important news about Craig and his projects will surface a little less frequently. We realize that finding relevant news to report every day will become more difficult to sustain. And to be frank, although we like to think of ourselves as hearty souls, the work of running a daily news operation has taken a lot of our energy and time; far more than we first expected it would.
We’ve been providing daily news about Craig and the show practically every day for five years. We have taken a week or two off now and then when the show has been on hiatus in the summer or around the holidays, but otherwise, it has been a labor of love seven days a week since Craig first joined Twitter in 2010 and began to assemble his robot skeleton army, now more than two million members strong. We believe the reason for our success has been you, for being such loyal readers and fans.
When it comes to researching, writing, editing, confirming guest lineups and tour schedules, designing graphics, compiling images, maintaining the website, keeping up the servers, sending out newsletters and working on social media, it has become nearly a full-time job. We’re a small group of volunteers who have “real” jobs, and we don’t work for the show. We’ve done it to support a man we believe is a tremendously talented and sometimes under-rated performer, and we’ve done it just for the fun of it. Thankfully, Craig has always been supportive of our work, and we’re honored by his kind words.
So what’s the plan for RSA News?
In order to keep it fun and to continue to ensure that you will have high-quality posts with some actual newsy stuff about Craig to read on a regular basis, we have decided that effective in January of 2015, we will be moving from a daily publication schedule to a series of weekly posts, summarizing what’s gone on and looking ahead to the following week.
We debated the idea of only posting periodically; perhaps only sending out alerts when something big happened. But we believe we have built a loyal following in part because we have been a dependable, reliable service, publishing on a predictable, routine schedule.
For that reason, starting in January we’ll be publishing a summary of Craig-related news at the same time every week on Wednesdays (actually late Tuesday evening for those who like to jump on the site within moments of each new post appearing). Our Facebook and Twitter posts with links to the website will go out each time the site is updated just as they always have, and we’ll send out our email newsletter with each new post, once a week. Of course, if there is bona fide breaking news of significance at other times during the week, we’ll post and tweet about it whenever possible. There may be some “extra” posts when Craig is on tour. We’ll continue to add new stand up dates and personal appearances as soon as we hear about them. But the main idea is to give you a steady dose of news at a fixed time each week. To be honest, we’re a bit relieved ourselves to have more time to gather the best news and information we can. There will be fewer posts, but our commitment to provide news about Craig and his projects will be as strong as ever.
Our readers make it possible
We want to thank all of the members of the robot skeleton army, but in particular, those who have been loyal and enthusiastic readers and contributors to RSA News. Many of you have been following us since our beginnings as a small blogspot site and a Twitter account with just a handful of followers. You put up with us through some growing pains as we moved to a full-blown website, during server upgrades and countless web design changes. There have been more than fifteen hundred daily posts, and many of you have read them all. We have more than six thousand Twitter followers, and host thousands of visits to the website every week. We are grateful for everyone who helps provide us with links and tips about Craig-related news, as well as sending us stories about your adventures seeing a show being taped or seeing Craig live on stage. We’ll need your help more than ever, because when the power of many Craig fans who keep an eye out for news is harnessed, the results are outstanding. We simply could not do it without you.
The bottom line
We will wrap up our daily publishing schedule on December 19th when Craig completes his time on The Late Late Show. Then following a break for the holidays, we’ll start weekly posts on Wednesday, January 7. We look forward to serving you in the next era of Craig’s career, and you have our sincere thanks.
Our Sentiments Exactly
The RSA’s @ChosenMert recently tweeted one of the best quotes we’ve seen about the final few weeks of Craig’s time on The Late Late Show. We think it sums things up quite nicely:
@CraigyFerg:while deconstructing a genre, you have constructed a family. #RSA #forevergrateful #notenoughwords
Covering the Theme
With the show coming to a close this month, Australian singer and Craig fan @stackels decided to record her own version of The Late Late Show theme song. We think she did a fantastic job. Take a listen:
Video courtesy: Stacey Smith
Astronomer Phil Plait recently tweeted a photo of his golden mouth organ, a prize for superior harmonica playing on The Late Late Show. He noted it will be displayed in a prominent spot in his office.
