I was all set to merely muse on the somewhat surprising news that came out of the FOX Sports camp early yesterday that confirmed, as oft seems to be the case, that I was only partially right–which given the choice they have landed upon also seems to be the direction they are pursuing. But thanks to the relative tsunami of a story that hit yesterday afternoon, it looks like I’ll merely confine my crow-eating and follow-up thoughts to our sister site DoubleOvertime.com for now. It’s a relatively slow weekend otherwise; you’ll get around to it (please?).
But the story that has practically everyone in media, politics and life both stunned and enraged was the one where we learned that Stephen Colbert’s run as the arguable “king of late night” came to an abrupt end when he learned that the network is choosing to completely opt out of the daypart they reinvigorated a bit more than three decades ago. Here’s how THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s appropriately surnamed Rick Porter shared it with his remaining readers:
In a surprise announcement Thursday, CBS and Late Show host Stephen Colbert said the show will come to an end in May 2026.
Colbert told the show’s live audience during the taping of Thursday’s show at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York. In a statement, CBS said the cancellation was “purely a financial decision” made in a declining linear TV landscape.
“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” reads a statement from Paramount co-CEO and CBS president and CEO George Cheeks, CBS Entertainment head Amy Reisenbach and CBS Studios president David Stapf. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.
And within minutes of that statement being reported the reactions from pretty much every circle of influence we tend to focus on was something akin to the arrival of the end times. Indeed, VANITY FAIR’s David Canfield took that approach in the lead to his paywall-hidden story:
The news landed like an earthquake on Thursday evening, coming amid swirling ongoing questions about the future both of late-night in the TikTok age and of CBS’s parent company Paramount, given its pending merger with Skydance Media. CBS ending one of the most venerable franchises in broadcast TV history—it dates back to 1993, when David Letterman joined the network after an acrimonious split from NBC—will only lead to the raising of more anxious eyebrows.
And that certainly seems to be the attitude of a few more outspoken politicans–many frequent guests of Colbert’s during his decade-long run on CBS and even prior to that on his eponymous Comedy Central REPORT, which HUFFPOST’s Ben Blanchet compiled:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) shared a clip from Colbert’s Monday monologue on social media where he slammed Paramount Global for settling a lawsuit with Trump, who claimed that a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris was deceptively edited to aid her chances of winning the election…Warren echoed Colbert’s sentiment as she wrote on X that the deal “looks like bribery” and America “deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who is set to appear on Thursday’s episode of “The Late Show,” also criticized CBS’ move. “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” Schiff wrote on X.
And given that fact, not to mention it appears that a certain obese farting leader has been spending a bit more time doom-scrolling while he deals with his swollen ankles, it’s fruit that’s as low-hanging as his testicles may be to note that those kind of bookings–not to mention the array of “MSDNC” contributors that have shared the Ed Sullivan Theatre stage over a tenure that has pretty much overlapped with his initial descent from that gilded “golden escalator” may indeed have set Fat Orange Jesus off enough to, much like any bully, send a text or two to his Ellison bros and make yet another demand in order to grant the permission they seek to officially take the reins of Paramount Global. And given that the equally self-centered nepobaby who is currently Cheeks, Reisenbach and Stapf’s ultimate boss is now battling her own time clock with the recent revelation that she’s fighting cancer, it’s probably accurate to connect these dots accordingly.
But like so much else in life–not to mention media and politics–these days, there are truths on both sides. I’m well aware that’s not a stand that sits well with most. But do allow me to educate you on why I’m firmly on that fence, painful as that may be.
Look, I’m seasoned enough to know a world that existed comfortably before Letterman, driven by ambition and bitterness for being passed over as Johnny Carson’s successor, took his game a few blocks north and west and ultimately gave CBS its first-ever win of any kind in original late night TV. They had tried at least twice before–once by briefly interrupting Merv Griffin’s otherwise successful syndication runs with a short-lived and perennially third-place attempt to challenge Carson and ABC’s nichy and erudite Dick Cavett, and then with the ill-fated and ultimately out of touch Pat Sajak effort whose launch coincided with the mercurial rise of Arsenio Hall as a de facto competitor via (ironically) Paramount syndication. There were many larger CBS affiliates that actually reaped the benefits of Arsenio’s success by opting to carry that rather than the network. Hall’s younger and urban skew complimented their late news efforts favorably and reached its peak influence during the 1992 presidential campaign when another prominent democrat showed the world he knew how to work the saxophone. So CBS was as much in need for an influx of someone like Letterman at the time as he was in need of an appreciative employer. His early success helped bring the network back into full alignment and also provided some sort of competition when many of those maverick large-market Arsenio affiliates ultimately were scooped up by FOX as part of their aggressive move to secure rights to the NFL.
I was in a position then, and I have been at several points since, to actually see what it costs to mount a show like Colbert’s. Even with only 34 weeks of four-day-a-week originals it’s a nine-figure expense–a reported $20 million alone going to his salary. And while it’s absolutely true that he’s had more viewers than anyone else in late night, more than 90 per cent of them are over the age of 50–roughly the same skew as FOX NEWS’ GUTFELD, which has taken more than a few opportunities to note that it has often beaten its broadcast network competitors outright during many of those off weeks and on average delivers only a few thousand fewer young adults than COLBERT. Which means so much for those inflated demo CPMs.
CBS knew those truths when it was facing Carson at his peak of popularity and knows them even more clearly now as they see the inexorable fractionalization of audience behavior and generational opportunity play out. They did the math and for decades did more than OK programming repeats of procedural dramas in the daypart. They have more than enough of those in their current portfolio, including a whole bunch of underexposed Paramount Plus originals, that would fit a modern day adaptation of the CRIMETIME AFTER PRIMETIME strategy they adopted when they attempted something slightly more ambitious in the late 80s. You might recall we revisited some of those options and their undeniable cost-effectiveness when we mused about how CBS threw in the towel on the second half of late night with the unfortunate cancellation of AFTER MIDNIGHT just as this long hot summer began.
And hey, if you wanted to break up the monotony with perhaps a weekly Bari Weiss-hosted answer to Bill Maher’s REAL TIME–a rumor that’s grown hotter as it’s been widely reported that Skydance is looking to acquire or at least align with her FREE PRESS platform–why not? That could easily be produced on the same scale at, say, GUTFELD, and is apparently just as capable of delivering a couple of hundred thousand adults under 50 as anything else.
As for Colbert’s future–I couldn’t help notice the wording both from him and his soon-to-be ex-bosses that referenced the SHOW ending in ten months. The show that he also executive produces. So while it’s perhaps a bit heartwarming to hear him tell his still shell-shocked staff that he intends to keep working with them for that duration, I find it nay impossible to believe he’ll actually be sitting in that chair much longer. I was around FOX when it kept a zombie late night franchise alive after Joan Rivers parted ways. If Colbert intends to keep booking the likes of Adam Schiff, I suspect there will be a few more clashes ahead with management, and I don’t see a scenario where even $20 million a year would be worth that kind of ongoing tsurris. Bill Owens walked out of 60 MINUTES with a lot less at stake.
But I actually think this will ultimately be liberating and opportunistic for him, not to mention potentially other late night personalities. Colbert, as well as Jimmy Kimmel and Jon Stewart, share the same manager in the mercurial James “Baby Doll” Dixon, who also represents Bill Simmons. Simmons has been more than able to give the middle finger to corporate Hollywood by creating a RINGER-verse of unapologetic–and profitable–podcasts covering the gamut of politics, entertainment and sports. Colbert’s unique takes on those worlds via lower-cost animation efforts like TOONING OUT THE NEWS, which sister CBS entities like Showtime and Paramount Plus embraced during more accomodating times, would translate ideally to a world increasingly moving toward vodcasting. I’d like to believe that brains as savvy as Dixon and Simmons aren’t already charting such a course–if not for Stephen alone, then perhaps an emerging dream team of the lot. Given that earlier this week Stewart weighed in with similar sentiments as the one Colbert went on air with with he saw as corporate knee-bending, and knowing his show delivers even fewer late night eyeballs, it wouldn’t be a huge leap of faith to suspect a similar announcement from him is forthcoming shortly.
And Kimmel is heading into the final year of his own deal with a network run by a seventy-something CEO looking for an off ramp who’s already coughed up eight figures to calm down the Ranter-In-Chief. I personally can’t wait to see how he chooses to react to this news, if for no other reason than I’m of the belief that by time he returns from his vacation there may be one less viable option for me to watch in the daypart.
So maybe while this is a tectonic moment in the history of the medium it may be more of a cleansing and a reality check than a capitulation. It was never a given nor a mandate for a network to chase good money after bad, nor is a God-given right for someone to feel entitled to publicly bite the hand that feeds them. Maybe in less sensitive and polarized–not to mention short-term gain obsessed– times cooler heads might have been able to prevail before something like this would happen. But let’s not kid ourselves to think that’s a possibility any more. It’s WAY too late for that.
Until next time…