Late Show with Stephen Colbert canceled...Possible Political Reasons

Tim Simmons · July 18

nicknyr15 said:

Tim Simmons said:

Apparently the show loses $40million a year which is wild given the content. So maybe it is economical to cancel.

For real? So which is it? Trump or losing 40 mil a year? Im inundated with headlines about this being political. Is every single thing political?

Probably the latter with bad optics for the first + the merger.

that being said, weird that they didn't want to try cut backs. Thats what Late Night with Seth Meyers did (fired the band).

mace1229 · July 18

Any network will do what makes them money. If keeping Colbert was going to make them money, he’d probably remain there. Seems much easier to believe the production costs outgrew the sponsorship than it was a bribe from Trump.

brianlux · July 18

mace1229 said:

Any network will do what makes them money. If keeping Colbert was going to make them money, he’d probably remain there. Seems much easier to believe the production costs outgrew the sponsorship than it was a bribe from Trump.

CBS insisted the show was cancelled for financial reasons. I don't see it. Colbert has been too popular, and I think he would have renegotiated. But like so many things today, we may never know the real reasons. Because of that along, I'm hugely skeptical of a simple answer.

Johnny Abruzzo · July 18

If they're having such money troubles why pay the bribe to Trump?

Tim Simmons · July 18

so they can sell the network.

Lerxst1992 · July 18

Tim Simmons said:

so they can sell the network.

Bingo. This has more to do about the current landscape in television.

Two major networks just split off their basic cable holdings from their more valuable assets so they don’t drag down earnings. Warner split off the discovery channels and NBC split off all of their cable assets except for bravo. The new cbs owner will likely do same.

there has been a disconnect in the tv business, as subscribing tv households declined from near 90% ten plus years ago to low sixties now while many are still getting rich from a dying business

the disconnect being many are earning huge salaries when these companies are deemed valueless by their conglomerates. HGTV just canceled a ton of “popular” shows

It’s also a ticking time bomb for the USA sports not named football. Many RSNs had to reorganize. Yes cbs is ota but they face similar problems as the basic cable channels. Viewership is down across the board. The only tv doing ok are some of the premium services, hbo, Netflix, disney(and they’ve been cutting also)

Lerxst1992 · July 18

Johnny Abruzzo said:

If they're having such money troubles why pay the bribe to Trump?

Cheaper to settle and also avoid a nasty, bad pr fight.

mickeyrat · July 18

mickeyrat said:

Jason P said:

He is number 1 in the ratings, so he should not have a problem finding another network to hire him based off that metric. This would be like the LA Dodgers announcing they plan to release Shohei Ohtani at the end of the year. Teams would be lining up at his door.

Plus, he has the advantage of having a full year to negotiate.

He will carry the legacy of destroying David Letterman’s legacy, which is tough look.

no he wont. paramount did this. guarantee dave comes out in support

adbook post....

gimmesometruth27 · July 18

Halifax2TheMax said:

shecky said:

Or maybe just because Colbert sucks and his show isn't funny.

Funny that, not knowing facts, ratings, etc. MAGAMAHALO!

Mods? Please move and merge in AMT as we don’t want to pollute AET. Or do we?

funny because trump and maga are obsessed with ratings. not knowing colbert is the highest rated late show is amateur hour.

gimmesometruth27 · July 18

cbs is a joke now. after what they did to 60 minutes and now this, the network is a fucking joke.

igotid88 · July 18

Should have stayed in AET

brianlux · July 18

igotid88 said:

Should have stayed in AET

I was surprised to see it was moved. Kind of curious as to how that happened. Perhaps AET is more like AAET (Almost All Encompassing Trip).

Maybe requested it get moved back and ask us all to not politicize the topic? We're grownups. I would think we could do that.

igotid88 · July 18

brianlux said:

igotid88 said:

Should have stayed in AET

I was surprised to see it was moved. Kind of curious as to how that happened. Perhaps AET is more like AAET (Almost All Encompassing Trip).
Maybe requested it get moved back and ask us all to not politicize the topic? We're grownups. I would think we could do that.

It's okay. The damage was done

igotid88 · July 19

Tim Simmons · July 19

Republicans should start Treating others “as humans” first.

gimmesometruth27 · July 19

igotid88 said:

leave it to the princess of arizona to chime in with a terrible take, as usual.

maybe she can go back on the view and bring on prominent republicans to give their thoughts??

oh wait, that's meet the press and every single one of the sunday news shows...

mace1229 · July 19

igotid88 said:

When did she start working for cbs? She has no knowledge that we don’t about the situation.

Spiritual_Chaos · July 19

tempo_n_groove said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

tempo_n_groove said:

shecky said:

Or maybe just because Colbert sucks and his show isn't funny.

I don't find him entertaining all the time but if he has a #1 show then why in D hell would you cancel it?

They must want a Fallon type that pleases everyone.

They are ending the show

The statement was they are cancelling it, Colbert isn't ending it. It was a financial decision. How does a #1 show lose money?

Ending the Late Night show as in not cancelling Colbert as a host and replacing him because he isnt funny or not entertaining all the time.

It costs more to produce than it makes back?
The opportunity of having something cheaper in the timeslot would garner a higher income?

Or what do you mean?

The financial picture has only gotten gloomier since then. Guideline, an ad data firm, estimates that the networks’ late-night shows earned $439 million in ad revenue in 2018 and only $220 million in 2024 — a decline of 50 percent.

mickeyrat · July 19

In 1978, Kenneth Tynan wrote a Profile of Johnny Carson for The New Yorker; it ran over 20,000 words. On the occasion of our centenary, a new King of Late Night, Stephen Colbert, revisited the piece. “While I host a show in the same time slot and tradition as Carson, I am, per certo, not Johnny,” Colbert writes. “Per Tynan, neither was ‘Johnny,’ who is described as an ‘eighth’ of the offscreen Johnny Carson—the rest being hidden behind Midwestern and professional rectitudes and a protective sodality (there we go) of producers, lawyers, and execs who pronounced Johnny a reformed drinker, loving son, and husband faithful to the point of celibacy.” Read his Take: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/vkGJ3d

mickeyrat · July 19

BREAKING: The Writers Guild calls on New York Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation into the allegations that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" was cancelled because he criticized Paramount Global's "bribe" to Donald Trump.

And it gets even better...

“Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancelation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration as the company looks for merger approval," The Writers Guild of America East and West wrote in a statement.

On Monday, Colbert unleashed a fiery monologue attacking Paramount for paying Trump $16 million to settle a sham lawsuit over a "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris in 2024. The suit was widely seen as a blatant act of presidential extortion on Trump's part, because at the same time Paramount is trying to obtain permission from Trump’s Federal Communications Commission for a merger with Skydance Media. The merger is estimated to be worth $28 billion.

"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," said Colbert.

On Thursday, CBS announced the surprise his show, claiming that it "purely a financial decision." They added that it was "not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount." Paramount Global is CBS's parent company.

The Writers Guild specifically questions in their statement if the cancellation of Colbert's show was an attempt to further ingratiate Paramount with Trump to grease the wheels for the merger deal.

“Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society,” the guild wrote.

“Paramount’s decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organizations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR,” it added.

Trump himself had previously called for Colbert to be fired and celebrated the cancellation on Truth Social, writing: "I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings."

Attorney General James must get to the bottom of this corruption. Trump is abusing the powers of presidency to stomp out his political enemies and if this goes unanswered, our nation's slide into full-blown authoritarianism will only accelerate.

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Late Show with Stephen Colbert canceled...Possible Political Reasons

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