Late Night Show Evolution in Albania: From Infotainment to Trash Show

Abstract

The impact of the new and social media on the audiences has obliged traditional television to adapt to a new culture of TV consumption. With the intention to generate new audiences, accustomed to social network infobesity mainly oriented in fake than real news, spectacle and consumption culture rather than information that affect the public opinion, TV genres are changing their flexible boundaries from infotainment talk show to trash show. But what are these new TV formats emerging in Albanian television? How are they created and under which influences? How are they organized and what kind of topics do they propose to the audiences? Are the interviews preprogrammed or are they spontaneous? What is the typology of their guests? Do they interact with the audiences in the studio? Are the questions of their followers in the social media included in the interview? The above listed questions and other issues are analyzed in this paper. The subject of this study is focused on two of the highest audience rated TV talk shows, “Xing me Ermalin” and “Zonë e lirë”, aired on the national television, Klan. The methodology of this paper is based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data and programs generated by the TV, social media monitoring process and interviews with anchorman, guests and media experts.