CBS Canceling 'Late Show with Stephen Colbert' After Next Season
nytimes.com> "[it's] purely a financial decision"
> "It is not related in any way to the show’s performance"
Naively, these seem like contradictory statements.
>Naively, these seem like contradictory statements.
It isn't contradictory. They don't want to publicly admit "hey nobody watched our unfunny show" because then it might impact their shares/valuation. Most likely that show was a loss leader.
Among other things, Colbert said:
“Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: It’s big fat bribe, because this all comes as Paramount owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.”
maybe they are worried that Colbert will say things that are actionable and could lead to more lawsuits?
> maybe they are worried that Colbert will say things that are actionable and could lead to more lawsuits?
Trump sues people even if things are not actionable. (And sometimes those people cave / bend the knee.)
Colbert still has months to say those things, though, so it's a bit of a moot point.
It could be that Colbert's pay has outpaced advertising revenue.
If this were the case, wouldn't we see a new host instead of a complete cancellation?
Who would tune in to watch the show then?
Yeah, definitely not related to the buyout nor the close ties that the executive team has to Trump.
Yes? If nobody watches your show anymore because you're an unfunny corporate mouthpiece, how do you justify the salary for you and your team?
Colbert had the highest ratings of any late night host and it's not even close. Even amongst dwindling ratings across all late night shows, he was big. Pretty hard to believe this was a purely financial decision made at the exact time he made his comments about Paramount.
Also not sure how being laid off for criticizing your host networks back channel deals with the White House makes you a corporate mouth piece, but what do I know.
Crazy you're being downvoted for having a voice of wisdom, but HN is ideologically captured so not questioning the groupthink party line does give you the downvotes.
Extremely disturbing to see the US Press go the same way as the Indian Press did under Modi.
I'd worry more about defunding public broadcasting or the Washington Post editorial stance. There's a good faith argument here that the cause was market conditions:
> The genre has been struggling as the majority of the country migrates in droves to streaming entertainment and away from traditional broadcast and cable television...
> The number of late-night shows has dwindled in recent years...
> The genre has also experienced a sharp decline in advertising revenue in recent years...
do you feel it's a good faith argument for management to make at the same time as they're trying to get personal approval from Trump to sell the company[0], and shortly after they just paid him a massive personal bribe[1], and one day after the person who is having their show cancelled, said this on said show [2]?
I really did not expect that the credulity of Americans would be one of their downfalls.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_merger_of_Skydance_Me...
1: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
2: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/jul/15/late-night-r...
Do "good faith arguments" really matter when the president is not exactly doing his best to show good faith? In this, and MANY other cases ... It's not like this administration is going to be convinced by a good faith argument, ever.
Which leaves just outright pressure.
At some level, it is worse. The Indian press never sold us citizens koolaid about freedom, talking truth to power, and patted themselves on the back about winning Pulitzer Prizes for journalism.
The Indian press knows it is a bottom feeder and doesn’t try not to be which gives space for critical thought to emerge (even if it masked as extreme cynicism - “everyone is corrupt”) which results in extreme skepticism of everyone.
America is over as we have known if for the last 95 years
All good things must come to an end and when one door closes, another opens.
Perhaps Colbert will sign with another network and bring bigger and better ideas to the small screen.
This is like telling someone to switch from Comcast to another ISP. The choices are limited. Oh and in this case, they're all owned by like two media conglomerates.
The Late Show has an elderly and shrinking audience. And, Colbert hasn't been funny in years, nor has he been challenging the powers that be.
When he did the White House Correspondents' Dinner and roasted George W Bush, that was extremely edgy. The Colbert Report was also wickedly funny.
But the Late Show makes John Oliver look like Lenny Bruce.
The Late Show was the only show to have positive viewership rates from Q1 to Q2 while maintaining the largest share of viewers.
It's hardly a shrinking audience.
The Late Show is basically tied with Jimmy Kimmel among 18 to 49 year olds, and everyone else is significantly worse.
https://latenighter.com/news/ratings/late-night-tv-ratings-q...
IMO, Colbert is consistently funny. His style has always appealed to me.
The show cost 100 million a year to make a loses 40 million a year. It's not just politics
Does this disregard the halo effect on the brand as well as the value to Paramount Plus streaming?
How much of that $100 million goes to Colbert himself?
Why are these very interesting and topical threads being flagged? I'd love for someone pressing that button to explain the rationale.
basically every article that is anti-the-US-regime gets flagged.
Sad!
According to Keith Olbermann, a far-ish left progressive, on his podcast The Late Show's cancellation it really was primarily due to financial difficulties of it being too expensive in a declining industry of traditional media where there are barely any OTA TV or cable viewers. Their overhead is too much and their internet audiences don't make them enough money. This is a classic horse and buggy company failing to adapt to an automobile world.
He also made it known he doesn't care personally for Colbert who rapidly took a proverbial wrecking ball to David Letterman's set to effectively damnatio memoriae his predecessor and obliterate all potential memorabilia.
> rapidly took a proverbial wrecking ball to David Letterman's set
What's this about ? Letterman had the skyline behind his desk; was anything else memorable ?
I’m not surprised that a late night host was let go, I’m surprised it was Colbert.
Jimmy Kimmel has a well documented history of racist and sexist skits. Every time a new video of his past emerges, it’s got to be an embarrassment for his network.
Poor luck for Colbert.
Kimmel was awfully sexist with Adam Corolla.
Really confused about this:
Why the flagging?
Shouldn’t be surprising, every late night show is going to end soon. They’re all too expensive
It’s currently the number one late night show. It’s not about money. It’s because the president pressured them after Colbert called the network out Tuesday for taking a bribe.
I think Gutfeld is number 1 overall, and has been for a while.
But TV ratings overall are down so low, I haven’t had cable since 2003, and at the time people thought I was a radical. Now it seems like the people that have cable are the rare ones, Especially if there is noone over 45 in the house.
There is a reason they all format their shows in a way that is easy to break up into youtube videos. If they didn’t, most kids under 30 wouldn't even know who they are
I'd never heard of Gutfeld - I'm a Brit - so checked it out - https://youtu.be/MflEEkCFtHY It doesn't seem very good..? The first few seconds is him jokinging insulting various democrats and the audience groaning.
You just described Colbert but flipped the political sign bit.
he’s the worst, but they all are gross
> I think Gutfeld is number 1 overall, and has been for a while.
From what I saw, Gutfeld is top in that time slot, but not for late night overall.
I agree that cable is crazy to pay so much money for and still have frequent and long commercial interruptions.
Assuming this table (https://latenighter.com/news/ratings/late-night-tv-ratings-q...) is accurate (and I am reading it correctly), Gutfeld has more average number of viewers than the other late night shows.
His show airs much earlier than the others which is why it’s not really considered the top late night. The rankings I was referring to were the true late night shows. Gutfeld is basically prime time.
He's also on cable. When people talk about late night talk shows, they're generally referring to one of the networks.
How can they be so expensive? Unless you mean in relation to ad revenue.
It's one host, maybe a band, they don't pay the guests cause their there to pitch their show/music/book/film. Maybe all the extra staff they need to write jokes and whatnot. Maybe all the drug advertisements really don't pay all that much anymore.
Late night talk shows are extremely cheap, compared to regular scripted television. It's one of the reasons why NBC was so excited about moving Jay Leno to 10pm when Conan took over The Tonight Show:
> The Jay Leno Show WILL be significantly cheaper than any primetime scripted show NBC could program. Primetime scripted programming usually costs about $3 million per hour; so the five hours NBC is revamping would total about $15 million per week. This new Leno show will cost NBC less than $2 million per week. ... So, not only does NBC get to KEEP its primetime hours, it gets to program them with a more cost-effective show.
https://www.writersdigest.com/industry-updates/jay-leno-nbc-...
the hosts costs a fortune
Supposedly, Colbert makes $15 million a year, which is about $100,000 per episode. It's not really outrageous for a host of a national television program.
How expensive can they be? One set, minimal editing?
It's surprising that the most successful late night show is going away first, and the optics of it happening while Paramount is trying to curry favor with the Trump administration couldn't be worse.
Why was this post flagged?
Some kind community members wanted to make it stand out to others who peruse /active.
Their beefing over South Park as well:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/sou...
At the heart of the dispute: a new 10-year, $3 billion overall deal for Parker and Stone that would more than triple the valuation of the current deal that expires in 2027
Yeah. So that's not going to happen lol.
"One possible factor in the negotiations: an $800 million loan that Park County took in 2023 from private equity firm the Carlyle Group. Parker and Stone could be squeezed for cash to repay roughly $80 million in interest per year, according to one person knowledgeable of the arrangement, who noted that Paramount may be open to paying more than $150 million annually in a new deal but not for 10 years."
That's quite the loan.
Apparently they needed to refinance a 600 million loan from 2021.
"The loan would be made through Carlyle’s credit arm and would refinance an existing $600 million debt facility provided by HPS Investment Partners in 2021, according to the report."
What the hell have they been spending it on?
Maybe some of that went towards Casa Bonita?
They said ~40 million. And that seems crazy high for a theme restaurant. I think they just don't know how to manage money.
I'm in Central time and love Colbert, but I'd never watch it if I lived in Eastern and had to wait until 11:35 PM.
I'm in London and watch sometimes on youtube. It's been years since I watched a program on TV at the official time you are supposed to watch it.
Yes. It's great that they put up the monologue so quickly after it airs.
It's a long beef and Colbert was one of the talk show hosts Trump hated peculiarly :)
https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/17/14944994/stephen-colbe...
Reality, unbiased, asserts itself.
didn't he talk shit about the Paramount deal just a couple days ago?
Honest, informed satire that's often more helpful in learning about real issues than "the news"; no surprise it's being cancelled. This and John Oliver are probably the last real holdouts in honest media in the current era, from what I've seen.
From my observations, Colbert's satire strictly represents one segment of the political spectrum. So it's either not informed, or not honest.
Name it up.
Or don't, whatever.. just be a chickenshit about it.
I will do it. The Covid vaccine propaganda.
Could not be a better example of how it leaned one way.
Lmfao
I hope now that he’s done selling out, he can return to the Colbert Report
Same company owns both CBS and Comedy Central.
he could change the name and make it a podcast, but i haven’t really liked him since he was on the daily show.
Mr. Steven's Podcast
Mega Conglomerations basically fucking own everything, late stage capitalism
They don't own you. Don’t be a victim--go and make something you love.
In what way do you think Colbert sold out?
Doing a late night show for boomers instead of millennials that created him.
Millennials don't watch TV.
We used to back in the day. Comedy Central had Colbert Report and Daily Show. Redditors culminated the Rally to Restore Sanity and Reason Rally in DC where thousands of (mostly) millennials flocked to the live performances MCd by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.