Late-night host Seth Meyers will not have the 8G Band during the fall season of his show due to budget cuts from NBC.
The layoffs mark the first time that Late Night with Seth Meyers will not have live music in its 10-year run. Keyboard player Eli Janney said in a new interview that Meyers and Mike Shoemaker, the showrunner of Late Night, broke the news to the band in a meeting, during which they expressed their “regret and frustration.”
“They had been trying to work it out for months, but in the end NBC was adamant about where they wanted the budget to go,” Janney said. “It’s not just the band; there’s a whole crew that works with the band, so there’s a lot of people employed. I think this was an easy way for them to cut the budget. Easy is not the right word.”
Janney attributed the budget cuts on the show to the “shrinking market” of broadcast television, noting how streaming is eating away from the share of attention that television used to have. He compared it to how Spotify affected the music industry, which made people not want to pay for music when they could just stream it.
When asked if Meyers’s show would still have walk-on music, Janney said the band will still work on music for the show, but the difference is that the band would not be playing it live. He also confirmed that the band will update this walk-on music periodically “to keep things fresh.”
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The show itself won’t be going anywhere. Meyers recently signed a new contract through 2028. He became host after Jimmy Fallon moved to The Tonight Show in 2014.
The Washington Examiner has contacted NBC News for comment.
