UI alum, Seth Meyers producer: ‘The reality is budgets are shrinking’

IOWA CITY — For the last 12 years of world-bending events worthy of both critical analysis and comedic reprieve in an ever-shifting entertainment landscape of streaming, strikes, and corporate mergers, University of Iowa alum Eric Leiderman has had a front-row seat as producer for the news and political satire talk show “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

But his path to that producer’s chair wasn’t straight or clear when he first arrived on the UI campus as an undergraduate from Chicagoland in 1995, earning his bachelor’s in communications in 1999.

“I did not want to wear a suit. I did not want to go to grad school,” he told The Gazette of his postgraduation plans. “I was very anti-authority and did not want to go the conventional route.”

But he did love comedy and music and — as the son of a sports broadcaster from a family of TV producers — saw television production as “a place where you could be a rebel.”

“But you could also be yourself,” said Leiderman — who at 48, after 25 years in the TV industry, is this year’s UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alumni fellow.

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Starting in 2000 as a production assistant on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and moving through a list of networks and show hosts over the years — including MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and E! hosts like Chelsea Handler, Andy Dick, Kathy Griffin, and Ellen DeGeneres — Leiderman charted his own career course of both writing and production.

“I just kept jumping from vine to vine and getting jobs writing comedy and producing comedy, with the focus on always wanting to do chat shows — late night talk shows,” he said. “And that's how I just kept bobbing and weaving my way into a staff job at Seth Meyers in December of 2013.”

Each of Leiderman’s stops along the comedy show circuit honed his craft and bolstered the skills he deploys today as a producer on the NBC show that dominates the 12:30 a.m. slot.

“I worked for the Andy Dick Show as a writer's assistant, and that was my first taste of working for difficult talent, wild talent, and also wildly-creative writers,” he said. “I worked with Zach Galifianakis when he had a talk show, and Colin Quinn when he had a roundtable talk show. Then I found my way over to Ellen for the launch of her talk show in 2003; and David Spade had a dark, very underrated show on Comedy Central for a couple of years … that's where I really honed my video segment producing chops.”

In 2013 — at the genesis of the Seth Meyers show — Leiderman threw in his name for a production job.

“In a what I thought was a long shot, but I had a couple of showrunner jobs under my belt,” he said. “And I got hired as a number two producer … And to this day, I'm still lucky to be there. I'm very grateful, and I just love the job.”

Despite broad changes affecting the entertainment industry and recent upheaval of the late-night landscape — with various networks pulling programs and politicians weighing in — Leiderman said the need for comedic commentary has and always will exist.

“The show continues to do the same show that we’ve done with the support of NBC, and we will continue do to the show,” he said. “It’s really simple. Seth’s voice isn’t going to change.”

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Leiderman also addressed the topic of artificial intelligence and job cuts during a Tuesday evening talk to UI students in the Iowa Memorial Union.

“The reality is budgets are shrinking, even on successful shows,” he said. “The next season, they want to do it better, faster, cheaper. That’s the way the world works. We are beholden to stockholders. And to make art in this environment is challenging. That's why I will tell all of you again to make your own stuff. There's nothing stopping you from making what you want to make.”

In giving career advice to the many students in the room pursuing entertainment — regardless of the curve balls flying in the industry, or perhaps because of them — Leiderman urged a “fragments of focus” mindset.

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“It's this idea of diversifying yourself and being open to whatever the work is,” he said. “There is no road map. There is nothing like that at all. The reality is it is luck and timing and talent all combined into one thing.”

He stressed the import of being “persistent without being thirsty,” of moving past rejection without internalizing it, of developing thick skin, and of sending thank you notes — on paper.

“Write a letter. It takes two seconds. Go to the post office, buy a stamp, feel the pen on the paper, it’s a nice feeling,” he said. “If you do that, someone gets mail on their desk, and it's like a light comes down — who sent me a letter? What is this thing? Do I open it? Do I put it in the trash right away? Is there something in it?

“You get a letter and you'll be remembered.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com