Colbert’s timing lifts Fort Worth, Stockyards

In this image released by CBS, host Stephen Colbert appears during a taping of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015 in New York. Colbert says he came awfully close to not making his much-ballyhooed debut on "The Late Show" this week. Colbert, opening his second program on Wednesday night, said that a combination of an overstuffed show that needed to be edited and a technical glitch temporarily preventing producers from sending the finished product to the network. (Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS via AP)

Comedian Stephen Colbert showed up last week as the new host of The Late Show on CBS.

The former Daily Show correspondent and namesake of the The Colbert Report on Comedy Central premiered his show on Tuesday, Sept. 8.

One of his first bits was to sing a pre-taped rendition of the national anthem with different singers at various cross-country locales. Those locales included the Fort Worth Stockyards. It was hard to tell if Colbert was actually there or if he was there through the miracle of CGI. But various Stockyards officials I contacted seemed to believe Colbert was actually there at some point to tape the short snippet.

Either way, Fort Worth and the Stockyards got a big shout out. Colbert averaged 6.6 million viewers as CBS’ successor to David Letterman, doubling the Late Show audience of a year ago, the Nielsen ratings company reported.

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Fort Worth even received another shout out the next day when the program was reviewed by The New York Times: “The show began with a mostly sincere pretaped segment in which Mr. Colbert and other musicians performed The Star-Spangled Banner in various locations around New York and the United States (including a bowling alley and the Fort Worth Stockyards in Texas).”

Colbert’s timing in coming to Fort Worth is interesting. Our issue of Sept. 7 focused (pun intended) on Fort Worth’s plans for a film commission to make it easier for productions like Late Night to do business in the city. We put that story on our cover and featured it on our website and I can say without any exaggeration that it’s been surprisingly popular. Fort Worth isn’t often thought of as a town that caters to graphic arts, film or video. But in recent years we’ve seen a lot of growth in that area. I’m sure I’m leaving some companies out, but Red Productions, RideTV, Sudios 121 and others have been raising our game in that area.

And coming to the Stockyards? That’s pretty good timing too. Lord knows the Fort Worth Stockyards has been in the news of late.

Colbert may not have known what he was doing, but his shout out to Fort Worth was timed just right. And as you know, in comedy, timing is everything.