In entertainment and media, women have slowly infiltrated previously male-dominated arenas. Evening news programs, long solo anchored by men, are now helmed by women at two of the major three networks. In film female-driven box office smashes like Julie and Julia, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and The Blind Side, continue to upend Hollywood’s long-held perception that only teenage boys go to the movies. And daytime TV, once ruled by men like Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Phil Donohue, is now the province of Oprah, Judge Judy and Ellen DeGeneres.

But the recent Conan-Leno brouhaha cast the spotlight on a curious phenomenon: Late-night broadcast television remains a male-only genre, like some kind of amber-entombed fossil from the Jack Benny/Jack Paar/Dick Cavett era. Here’s the major networks’ testosterone-fueled schedule: NBC’s The Tonight Show was headed up by Jay Leno until 2009, then Conan O’Brien, now Leno again. After The Tonight Show, there’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and then Last Call with Carson Daly. CBS has the Late Show with David Letterman, then the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. ABC has Jimmy Kimmel Live at midnight.

Can this be blamed on the old adage that women aren’t funny? If Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers, Lily Tomlin and Gilda Radner didn’t already disprove that so-called theory, then how about relative newbies like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman or Kathy Griffin? Certainly any one of these women is funnier than Carson Daly. Of course they are already doing better with their own projects than they might do if handed a 1:30 a.m. slot like Daly’s, which is, as Letterman pointed out recently, almost like not having a show at all.

One might argue that late night is already littered with a few bodies of female hosts, killed off by bad ratings. Neither The Tonight Show almost-heir apparent Joan Rivers nor Whoopi Goldberg were able to last more than a year on late night. Fox’s new late spot with Wanda Sykes (only on Saturday) is on life support. The E! Network’s Chelsea Handler has been successful, but her persona is almost more masculine than feminine. If she ever leaves E!, she could easily transition to Spike TV.

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© 2010 Forbes Woman

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