Craig Ferguson is leaving "The Late Late Show" in December

Last night, Craig Ferguson announced that he's leaving CBS's "The Late Late Show" when his contract expires at the end of 2014. According to press reports, he contacted CBS management earlier in the day to alert them that he intended to announce his departure, and the network sent out a press release a few hours before the show aired on the East Coast. Ferguson will have completed ten years of hosting the show when he leaves in December.

From the beginning, Ferguson was one of the most unique hosts in U.S. late night television. His monologues are what got early notice--the common style was (and still is) to make a series of jokes about the events of the day, while Ferguson frankly discussed his battles with alcoholism and drug addiction and other personal topics. He makes a show of tearing up the "blue cards" that his producers prepare with information about his guests. The show isn't rehearsed, which sometimes leads to problems but far more often gives Ferguson's show a spontaneity missing from the rest of late night.

Ferguson is also unique for not only how he interviews, but who he interviews. He won a Peabody Award for his interview of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2009. He devoted an entire episode of the show to an hour-long one-on-one interview with Stephen Fry without a studio audience in 2010. He also interviewed philosophy professor Jonathan Dancy, and admitted later to Dancy's son (Hugh Dancy, star of NBC's "Hannibal") how intimidated he felt during the interview. Ferguson has interviewed a "Who's Who" of British, Scottish and Irish actors, many of whom are his long-time friends. These interviews are never as rehearsed or forced as the interviews these actors have on other late night shows; instead, they're conversations between two friends catching up with each other.

Ferguson, who's a published novelist ("Between the Bridge and the River") and autobiographer ("American On Purpose"), has interviewed a wide range of authors, including (in 2013 alone) Lawrence Block, Jackie Collins, Michael Connelly, Helen Fielding, Doris Kerns Goodwin, John Green, Philip Kerr, Dennis Lehane, Ben Mezrich, Jo Nesbo, Anna Quindlen, Anne Rice and Jon Ronson. You'd be hard-pressed to find any authors of note on any of the other broadcast networks' late night talk shows.

In his cold open Monday night, Ferguson said that the decision to leave "The Late Late Show" was his, and he had actually planned to leave in 2012 but was persuaded to stay for two more years by CBS's commitment to give him a new, larger studio. Despite the stories that began to swirl around after David Letterman announced his retirement, I take Ferguson at his word. If CBS had discussions with other potential hosts, it was (at least initially) to provide a backup in the event that Ferguson decided not to renew his contract at the end of this year.

I've always compared Craig Ferguson to one of the greatest late night show hosts, Jack Paar. I was very young when Paar hosted "The Tonight Show" (from 1957 to 1962), but what I remember from that time and gained a better appreciation for when I was older was that Paar was both intelligent and risky. You never knew for sure what would happen on Paar's show: In 1960, he left the show for three weeks to protest NBC's censoring of a joke, and he left the show for good two years later. Paar wanted guests with whom he could have interesting conversations, not just guests who had something to plug.

Like Paar, I've expected Ferguson to at some point thank his audience, turn on his heels and walk out of the studio, never to return. As of Monday night, we now know that time will come before the end of the year. When Ferguson leaves, it'll be the end of an era. I'm going to enjoy the remaining eight months with Craig Ferguson, because it's very unlikely that the host who replaces him will be as interesting.

How to podcast like the best

Over the last month, I've been dealing with either a herniated disc or arthritis (I haven't yet spent an hour in a tube getting an MRI to find out which one.) Laying down with a capsaicin patch on my back, there's not much to do but listen to something, and the something I listen to most often is podcasts. The ones I find myself enjoying the most are Jeff Garlin's "By The Way," and Alec Baldwin's "Here's The Thing." There are other podcasts that I listen to, but Garlin's and Baldwin's are consistently the best. Here are a few suggestions for how to produce great podcasts, based on their shows:

• It's quality, not quantity: Some hosts seem to be in a race to produce as many podcasts as they can before they die, but as of this writing, Garlin has produced only six shows, and Baldwin has done only 38 since October 2011--about one every two weeks. It's much better to do fewer but better shows, than to stay on an aggressive schedule and produce a bunch of mediocre shows with a gem here and there.
• It's the guests, stupid: No matter how good an interviewer is, what matters are the guests. You can only talk to yourself for so long before the audience gets bored. For their part, Garlin and Baldwin get great guests.
• Book guests that you like: If you're interviewing someone that you don't like, respect or care about, your audience can hear it in the interview. Some hosts go after big-name guests, under the assumption that famous guests will draw an audience, but then the interviews turn out poorly. The chemistry between the host and guest is far more important than the guest's fame or status.
• Leave the audience wanting more, not wanting to change the channel: Podcasts seem to have gotten longer and longer over time--80 minutes isn't unusual, and some can run for two hours. It's impossible for most hosts to maintain an interesting conversation for that long, so some introduce games, contests, etc., which for most listeners is the signal to turn off the podcast. In my opinion, 45 minutes to an hour is a good length for a podcast; no show should be longer than 80 minutes. If you really, truly have enough material to go longer, make the remainder of the podcast into a bonus episode.
• Consider building a "company" of recurring guests: In the early days of U.S. late-night television talk shows, before most guests came on to promote their latest movie or television show, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett had recurring guests, such as Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Groucho Marx. These guests were such great conversationalists and had so many stories that they entertained audiences for years, even without new books or movies. 
• Don't supplicate yourself to guests: It's easy to turn into a "fanboy" when you interview a guest who you admire, but sometimes, it's uncomfortable for both the guest and the audience. It's fine to tell the guest that you're a fan of their work before you start recording, but once the interview begins, you and your guest are equals. That's what your audience, and most guests, expect. (On the other hand, if a guest expects you to "kiss up" to them during the interview, that's likely to turn into compelling audio when you confound their expectations. An interview that goes badly can sometimes be exciting and edgy for your audience--remember David Letterman's classic interview with Joaquin Phoenix.)
• Don't be afraid to dump an interview: Even the best interviews have to dump an interview from time to time. Perhaps you or your guest is having a bad day, or you get into an interview and realize that there's absolutely no chemistry between you and the guest. If you record an interview and after listening to it find that there's no way to cut it into a usable form, it's no sin to say "Sorry, I was having a bad day, and we can't send the interview out." It's better to kill a bad interview than to air it and disappoint your listeners (unless its very badness makes it funny or compelling, as in the previous bullet point.)

If you follow these rules (and are a good interviewer to begin with,) your podcasts have a much greater chance for success.