James Corden is a fine addition to late night's viral video factory

In the modern late-night TV landscape, every host has carved out a neat little niche for himself. The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon is genial and over-caffeinated, eager for every celebrity and every goofy game. Late Night's Jimmy Kimmel is the sneering prankster, faster to needle and mock than any of his competitors. Conan O'Brien is ramshackle and arch — part late-night show, part winking commentary on late-night shows. The only one who transcends niche is The Late Show's David Letterman, the eccentric elder statesman, riding out his last year before handing the reins to Stephen Colbert.

The Late Late Show's new host, James Corden — as earnest and likable a figure as anyone in the late-night landscape — fits squarely into his own small category. ("I will really do my best not to let any of you down," he said, clearly meaning it, at the end of a self-deprecating opening monologue.) Most late-night hosts debut with some of that gee-whiz, I'm-just-so-happy-to-be-here persona, but Corden's style doesn't seem temporary; it feels like a default mode, from a guy who feels like he's won the lottery and is determined to make every second of the experience count.

Of course, the opening monologue is very, very low on the list of The Late Late Show's concerns, because the definition of a successful late-night host has undergone a major shift since the days of Johnny Carson. The most "important" part of Corden's debut wasn't his opening monologue, or his cheery but shaky banter with guests Tom Hanks and Mila Kunis. It was an extended riff on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which cast Corden as the Golden Ticket winner in a contest to determine the next host of The Late Late Show:

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The prerecorded bit was tailor-made to go viral: a clever pop-cultural hook, a relatively short running time, and a slew of surprise celebrity cameos, including Lena Dunham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meryl Streep, and even Jay Leno giving his implicit nod of approval. A later bit — in which Corden and Tom Hanks reenacted as many of Hanks' movies as quickly as possible over a rapidly shifting green screen — had similar viral appeal:

Did the approach work? Depending upon the stick by which you're measuring them — and CBS would prefer you go with the favorable comparison — Corden's ratings are either ahead or behind the ratings earned by Craig Ferguson during his 10-year run on The Late Late Show. But as much as analysts will hash over Corden's numbers in the weeks and months to come, they don't actually matter all that much — it's not like The Late Late Show is going anywhere. (Remember: This is a relatively cheap, relatively buzzy show that fills an entire hour of dead time from 12:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m.)

In a larger sense, ratings and timeslot aren't important anyway, because YouTube is the battleground on which the modern late-night wars are fought. Today, "late-night shows" are more accurately described as "coffee break shows" — a series of prepackaged, five-minute-ish clips designed for easy sharing, so bored office workers can see who Jimmy Fallon goofed around with or Jon Stewart destroyed last night.

CBS' aspirations for James Corden's Late Late Show can be seen in its counterexample: the Late Late Show's pre-Corden YouTube page, where videos routinely languished with views in the low hundreds or thousands. Today, numerous websites (including this one) gamely shared Corden's antics to the tune of tens of thousands of viewers and counting.

James Corden may be CBS' new late-night host, but his real success will be measured in the mid-morning crowd.