Some are mad about the cancellation of The Late Show with host Stephen Colbert, blaming President Trump for the ax. However, there is a much simpler reason. The show was losing money and a great deal of it. The Wall Street Journal reported:
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was profitable as recently as a few years ago. Now, it loses about $40 million a year, according to a person familiar with its budget. On Thursday, CBS PARA 0.39%increase; green up pointing triangle pulled the plug on the show and an entire franchise launched in 1993, making it the biggest casualty yet among late-night talk shows contending with cord-cutting, changing tastes among younger viewers and declining ad revenue. The budget for the show, filmed in New York City’s Ed Sullivan Theater, includes a live band, a staff the host said numbered 200 people, and an annual salary of $20 million for Colbert, according to a person familiar with the show’s operations. That hefty cost of production, a withering business model and a parent company under pressure struck fatal blows. The TV mainstay will go dark next May.
CBS looked to the future and found it wanting:
Then internet video changed everything. These days, late-night shows are one of the most endangered formats in Hollywood.... By distributing their host monologues and comedy bits across YouTube and social media, the late-night shows kept a foothold in pop culture and notched their share of viral hits. But digital advertising revenue hasn’t made up for the fall in ad dollars going to traditional broadcast programming. Spending on linear advertising for the late-night segment on ABC, CBS and NBC fell from $439 million in 2018 to $221 million in 2024, according to Guideline, an ad-tracking platform. Article
$40 million a year loss and industry ad-revenue halved? Sounds like a recipe for disaster - or cancellations.
29 comments:
$20 friggin' million/year? YGTBSM! Blaming it on Trump. So predictable.
Good Riddance to the bum!
$20 million a year, but he goes on and on about those rich MAGA republicans. He needs a staff of 200 to prop him up.
People on the left blame Trump for the lumps in their oatmeal. I'm so over people blaming Trump I don't even listen to it anymore.
politics aside, I'm surprised he lasted this long. The ONLY funny thing that hack Colbert has EVER done is provide the voice of Phil Ken Sebben in Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and Part 2
And this glorious achievement can be enjoyed in two videos that take less than 25 minutes to watch.
This is the comedic peak of his career right here. Everything else has been political hackery, and Strangers With Candy which was the total opposite of funny.
Sure, CBS says it was a financial decision. And with The Late Show hemorrhaging $40 million a year, that’s not exactly pocket change—even for a network that still thinks people watch commercials. But let’s not pretend this was just about dollars and cents. The timing? Suspicious. The optics? Murky. The gloating? Presidential.
Trump, never one to miss a victory lap, posted on Truth Social:
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”
He then graciously extended his critique to the rest of late-night:
“I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
So yes, the show was expensive. Yes, ad revenue tanked. But when the guy who just settled a $16 million lawsuit with CBS starts cheering from the sidelines, it’s hard not to wonder if the axe came with a little extra swing.
Only a moron would watch that show.
Dont care for any of the late night shows anymore.
I miss Johnny Carson.
ZH had a better article about this. They are all using late night as a political tool. They can push agendas and tell lies with less scrutiny because they can just claim they are comedians. They are also employing the devious “daily show” formula of using Pavlovian training to associate non-leftist ideology with mockery and humiliation. Stewart long ago pioneered this process where he rapidly mocks a concept, the audience is then prompted to laugh (regardless of it is funny) and then before you can process that what he is saying is Marxist bullshit, he moves on to the next bit of conditioning that uses the “fear of mockery” to brainwash you into conforming to cultural Marxism.
This “daily show” type conditioning proved that it worked so well on “midwits” (like KF) that it has been replicated by every network with much less and varying effectiveness.
Shows are canceled all the time. Get over it.
He has a solid base…he will be back in another format
25 years from now, it will still be Trump's fault. Amazing how little accountability these hacks want to take.
ABC needs to get rid of Jimmy Kibble & Bits!
He's a founding member of the leftist Democrats & a Smuck!
Late night comedy died May 22, 1992.
Don't watch any late night shows. Hope that man finds his peace coming over to MAGA!
Letterman was a funny host. You can watch plenty of videos where he would visit Trump Tower with tourists from his audience to make content for his show. Trump was always gracious and welcomed Letterman and his guests. Trump would allow Letterman to make fun of him and even play a long. Once Trump even joked “I have nothing else to do” when Letterman thanked him for allowing his crew to just show up. It wasn’t disrespectful of Trump in any way. It was comedy and Letterman was genuinely funny in the 80s and 90s. Colbert wasn’t qualified for fill Letterman’s chair. Sadly, I don’t think any sort of comedy is really allowed anymore. It all has to be PC and the only racial/gender jokes a can be about white males.
Jack Paar and Steve Allen were better than all of them combined,including Carson.
Letterman turned into a heel by the end and Colbert was never anything but one.
Hearing footsteps, Fallon and Kimmel? All three of you are midgets compared to your predecessors.
Please take your meds! It is just a TV show.
That tinfoil hat is wrapped a little tight don’t you think?
His reaction when Jon Stewart called out the Wuhan virus as a lab leak said it all. He has a mean streak and gives the impression that if you disagree with his politics, he looks down on you.
It was losing a ton of money but I think the final nail was CBS did not see a road to profitability for the show. Given the rise of the internet, podcasts, Youtube etc, stars no longer need those late night shows for access to public. Carson was not just a comedian, but he was also a gatekeeper.
I think Colbert is funny, even though I don’t always agree with him…end of the day it’s a failing business model…I have to go to work in the morning, so I’d rather watch a few clips here and there, and I don’t see how any late night show could monetize that
In 2009, the show led other late night shows in ad revenue with $271 million.[75] In February 2014, Advertising Age cited Kantar Media and Nielsen in reporting that for January to October 2013, Late Show attracted $179.6 million in advertising for CBS, higher than its seven late-night competitors on NBC, ABC, Comedy Central, and E!.[74] Late Show also had the oldest median audience among those same peer broadcasts,[74] at 58.9.
So let me get this straight=== just because Colbert gives liberals and infected TDS a place to advertise their symptoms then CBS (Paramount) shouldn't care about how to fund it. This is the ultimate definition of socialism. Colbert, if his show is worth so much, should move to Paramount+ where those who want the propaganda can pay for it...
What is ZH?
There is an excellent documentary available, “The Story of Late Night “. It covers the beginning with Steve Allen and goes all the way up to the current hosts.
While I did like his Waffle House song with Sturgill Simpson and the time when he came to Hattiesburg to do a segment for the Daily Show about the Rick James campaign signs being stolen, most of his humor missed the mark.
@4:01 try using this new search engine called google. ZH are in the WH press pool.
I've never heard of Colbert, and didn't know there was a show with that name. But it doesn't seem to matter WHICH Late Night Talk Communist you try to watch, they all come across as rabid bullies and really nasty people - the kind of bullies who'd mock and bait their victims, before the other ones rushed in with fists. At least this Colbert person looks human. The rest are so hideous, your finger keeps punching the remote, without pausing.
I'm surprised, actually, though, that profitability factored into the decision to can the show. Maybe its being unprofitable, is only the EXCUSE. The hostile factions controlling television, view profits as tertiary considerations - far behind Propaganda Value and efficacy in inducing Mass Formation Psychosis. What's a hundred million or two, when The Conquest of North America is the End Goal.
Maybe Colbert isn't hateful and crazy ENOUGH? Maybe his restingbitchface isn't bitchy enough?
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