Don't know if this really merits its own thread, but we'll see if it touches a nerve.
I've been skipping around on Youtube looking at snippets from talk shows. More than usual, for the obvious reason. I don't own a tv and have never in my life owned one (this feels a bit like the formal declaration “I am not now and never have been a member of the Communist Party” that you used to have to sign to get into the United States. It is true, though).
I find myself quite critical of most of the hosts. Very few actually know how to listen, and when to put the question, and how to put it. How to draw their guests out of themselves. They seem to think that, well, really, it's about them. Letterman was one of the worst offenders in that respect. But I can't really stand any of the North American hosts. Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon seem to have nothing about them that interests me, and they're very gushy with their guests, I find.
Charlie Rose is pretty good, in a serious and even sombre kind of way. Not a lot of laughs, there, but then, that's not what he's about.
As for the Brits. I couldn't stand Norton at first, although I've grown used to his general style, and I must say he's good at thinking on his feet, and does genuinely seem to like his guests (even when there's some that he must, surely, dislike). In any case, he's either very curious about others, or an expert at faking it.
I cannot, at any price, take Jonathan Ross. Even one minute of him sets my teeth on edge.
Being of a generation that grew up with him, I thought Parky wasn't bad, although I did get tired of that Yorkshire drone, after (what seemed like) decades. He became just part of tv furniture (my family owned a tv, of course, and I had an overdose of it from childhood onwards).
Who do people like and dislike?