At first glance, Jed Rosenzweig’s new venture would seem like a fool’s errand: launching a digital news site during brutal economic times for the media to cover an industry that, by traditional measures, is waning in influence.

That didn’t dissuade him. LateNighter, a website and newsletter that follows late-night television comedy, began operations in February.

There has been plenty to chew on since then, including Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show,” John Mulaney’s new Netflix show, Jimmy Kimmel’s feud with Donald Trump, Conan O’Brien resurfacing online and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s emergence as a comic foil.

“I haven’t come to this project from a business perspective, so much so much as a passion,” says Rosenzweig, a veteran entertainment journalist based in Portland, Oregon.

He hasn’t released any metrics that would indicate how the site is catching on. LateNighter is a small operation, with only two full-time employees, and was essentially self-funded.

His 13-year-old son Lem’s obsession with “Saturday Night Live” inspired LateNighter, Rosenzweig says.

A couple of influential contributors brought gravitas at the start. Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift” and one of the industry’s most important chroniclers while at The New York Times, is a regular writer. Eric Deggans, TV critic at NPR, has also agreed to do occasional pieces.

By television ratings alone, late-night isn’t the force it used to be. The quartet of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” CBS’ “Late Show,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Daily Show” collectively averaged 10.5 million viewers a night a decade ago. Now, together they pull in 4.8 million people a night, the Nielsen company said. Ad revenue for the shows dropped by 70% between 2015 and 2023.

Broadcast network entertainment in general has collapsed with cord-cutting and the rise of programming on streaming services. Mulaney’s new effort notwithstanding, streaming hasn’t been able to replicate the late-night comedy genre.

Besides, television ratings don’t reflect the way many people follow late-night stars these days — through highlight clips posted online.

“You can make the argument that it’s more influential today than it ever has been,” Rosenzweig says.

In its short life, LateNighter has shown the potential to be a solid, creative news source. It wrote an oral history of a groundbreaking Madonna appearance on David Letterman’s show, for instance. After O.J. Simpson died, it wrote about his impact on late-night comedy.

The website provides a morning-after recap of late-night monologues — suggested by Kimmel, Rosenzweig says — that has proven so popular that some readers asked for an email alert when it is posted.

Besides standard news and features, LateNighter crunches numbers looking for trends. Each week, it measures how many minutes “SNL” cast members get on the air and the length of each guest host’s monologue. It has calculated which weeknight show gets the most laughs per hour. Through a partnership with Nielsen, it regularly publishes late-night ratings.

Ten minutes after each new “SNL” episode concludes, LateNighter hosts a livestream where panelists and readers weigh in on what went right and wrong. A separate Monday roundtable dissects things in minute detail.

“The response from readers and the shows themselves has been really gratifying,” Rosenzweig says. “Insiders are sending us news tips, people tell us they check the site multiple times a day, and the number of subscribers to our free newsletter continues to grow.”