LOS ANGELES — In the blink of an eye, late-night TV is shifting from a white men's club to the start of a rainbow coalition.

Wanda Sykes' weekly comedy show debuted last night on Fox, followed by George Lopez's four-night-a-week talk show on TBS, starting 11 p.m. Monday. They join “The Mo'Nique Show” on BET.

Lopez is counting on an audience hungry for something different — as in the first Hispanic to host a nighttime talk show on a major network, cable or broadcast.

Sykes is the first black late-night host since the late 1990s, when celebrities Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Keenan Ivory Wayans tried and failed to follow in Arsenio Hall's successful 1989-94 footsteps.

“There's a huge percentage of people not watching late-night TV at all,” Lopez said, figuring that the shows headlined by hosts including David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel draw from roughly the same audience pool.

For people of color, the actor and comedian said, “I don't think a lot of their needs are met with the current talk shows. I would pull a different audience.”

But neither Lopez nor Sykes are talking about practicing exclusionary TV. Lopez's ABC sitcom drew a cross-section of viewers, and Sykes said she expects her show to attract the same mixed crowd she gets at her stand-up appearances.

“Young, old, male, female, all races, gay, straight. I love the audience that I draw,” Sykes said.

She rebuts the idea she got the job because of her gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

“I do understand the importance of being on a late-night talk show as a black, gay woman. But I've been at this for 20 years. I don't think they (networks) were saying, ‘Hey, it would be fun to get a black woman on late-night. Who fits that role?'

“I got this show in spite of being a black lesbian,” she said, adding that viewers will tune in to see her or Lopez and not a type.

The two shows, as sketched by their hosts, will take different approaches.

Lopez promises to bring “the party back to late-night,” signaling a looser, hipper hour in the tradition of “The Arsenio Hall Show,” said analyst Bill Carroll of media buyer Katz Television in New York.

Sykes is planning Bill Maher- type panels with lighthearted and serious discussion of politics and culture as part of her mix.

“In some ways, these shows are looking at breaking the mold,” Carroll said. “Lopez Tonight,” he suggests, could be “what late-night might look like in the future.”

Sykes, whose show replaces Fox's “Mad TV,” could compete successfully in her partial overlap with NBC's “Saturday Night Live,” analyst Brill said.

“Viewers could watch her show and then switch to ‘SNL' in time for the news, which is the only part that's funny anyway.”