CBS Canceling Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Is an End of an Era for Television — and a Chilling Sign of What’s to Come
CBS Canceling Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Is an End of an Era for Television — and a Chilling Sign of What’s to Come
That’s what happens when you allow a handful of people to own all the media outlets.
This is Extremely Dangerous to our Democracy.
For anyone who doesn’t get the reference:
Colbert for President!
This seems like the cancel culture people have been shrieking about
Crazy how accurate projection always is with the right.
On the one hand, I hate CBS being this chicken shit about the administration (and over what, a merger that probably isn't even that great for them). On the other hand, it reminds me of NBC's handing of Conan, which ultimately was better for Conan. If Daily Show goes too, I can't imagine they won't both team up on a new platform somewhere in sort of a golden era moment.
My generation is used to things coming and going, anyway. Nothing is sacred.
they really, really want that skydance deal approved. it's gonna come out that booting colbert was absolutely demanded by donvict to get it done.
Yeah the 16 million they paid was just the lube
https://deadline.com/2025/07/trump-paramount-skydance-merger-whats-next-1236448358/
Honestly kind of a genius move to sue the company before you help them. Excellent way to launder bribery money.
Just read a fine blog post by John Gruber on the matter: Curse Not the King
Depending on his contract’s cancellation clause, he might with his own pocket change just resume his show on his own streaming service (or pornhub if he wants to mock CBS)
His contract wasn't breached, they decided they wouldn't renew, hence why he's working still for the next ten months. It's still a cancellation, it just isn't the immediate one some people think it is.
Honestly seems stupid of them to announce it literally three days after Colbert called them out for bribing Trump.
I'd also like to think that a lot of the late night guys - Colbert, Stewart, Kimmel, etc - could do just as well on...their own web site, some streaming service, whatever. Colbert's announcement said the Late Show is 200 people. Writers, researchers, graphics, all the mechanics of just shooting and editing the show. 200 people is at least $10M/year (without Colbert's own salary). The hosts themselves are (obviously) funny people, but they've all got a dozen or a score of really good writers backing them up. Researchers to find the funny clips or kick in topics. Their content will suffer without that machine.
Maybe one or two of these big names could recruit a paying audience big enough to manage that, but they're not going to pay it out of their own pocket for long. They're decamillionaires, not billionaires.
It’s exactly what needs to happen. Billionaires are continuing to push viewers off of corporate platforms, under the mistaken impression that they control what we consume. Every day they forgo more control over the masses.
I predict people will just get used to it like in China and Russia. While you're right that the billionaires take more and more control over the media and the masses, I don't think that the masses are willing to do anything about it.
Aaron Parnas and Meidas Touch Network now have more monthly active viewers than many legacy media outlets.
Millennials and Gen Z make up the majority of content creator viewership. Legacy media is losing its grip fast.
Interesting take!
It’s more like viewers refuse to try independence media and stay comfortable with what they are familiar with.
Example: Reddit and Twitter.
Maybe he will go back to Comedy Central and start the Colbert Report back up?
Probably not. Owned by the same company.
I think that's owned by Paramount now, and I'd bet the daily show doesn't have much longer to go either.
Notice how Stephen salutes us all with one of his ears?
Remember that fellow citizens! The best ever Americana generating Idol of the people salutes us. We must all salute back!
I find the article a little ridiculous. "Chilling" is being used to describe the end of late night television for commercial reasons. People aren't watching late night TV as much, and the advertising is not there - that isn't chilling; that's the world we live in.
The way the article is written you'd think late night TV is an irreplaceable cultural touchstone. It's nonsense - people have stopped watching so it's already no longer a touchstone.
This is from Wikipedia on rival Tonight Shows ratings in 2006:
2006, The Tonight Show led in ratings for the 11th consecutive season, with a nightly average of 5.7 million viewers – 31% of the total audience in that time slot – compared to 4.2 million viewers for Late Show with David Letterman, 3.4 million for Nightline and 1.6 million for Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
In 2025, Colbert is leading the ratings with 2.42m - less than half the audience for 1st place in 2006 - and now we're in a time where TV advertising has declined massively in value.
Look at the TV ratings for 2024/2025 and network TV has collapsed. The most watched shows are Netflix. And even the few Network TV shows that break the top 20 are getting way fewer viewers than 20 years ago. Plus they're skewed to older viewers that are not valuable to the advertisers. The demographic they want - 18-35 - don't watch TV any more, and they certainly don't sit down every night to watch late night TV shows.
So Colbert's Late Show being cancelled is more a sign of the times. Network TV is dying and it's dying fast. The merger itself between Skydance and Paramount/CBS is itself a sign of the times - one billionaire media family is exiting old media (the Redstone family) which another is buying into it (the Ellis family). But Paramount and CBS are not doing well - Paramount global has declining revenues, declining assets and made an operating loss of $5.3bn. The big media conglomerates failed to move fast enough with the times; Netflix has won the streaming wars while traditional TV and Cinema is in massive decline. These companies don't have any answers - they're just managing declines while new companies will come along and take advantage of the new world.
Colbert's show was in 1st place and it was cancelled to save money. I wouldn't be surprised if there are further cancellations although for now I suspect the networks will wait to see where the audience of the Late Show lands. But one of the shows (Jimmy Kimmel's I think?) house band was sacked last year to save money - the writing is on the wall.
It's possible the politics of the merger played a role but even if that's the case, it shows that the value of the Late Show has declined so much for Paramount/CBS that they could dump it easily.
Colbert is still the most lucrative thing in that timeslot. they were STILL making money. They have nothing else to put in that slot that will get them anything even close to that.
this. this right here. "it doesn't make as much as it used to" doesn't mean "we can easily make more with something else entirely"
the only network in the proper position to take a gamble like that and legitimately have a reason to believe them is fox who is consistently in the 4 spot for that market.
cbs is the network with the golden goose right now. it's still laying eggs, just less often than it used to. but they want to appease the fascist overlord so they can benefit from some government corruption. don't let the numbers or the statisticians spin this. pay attention to what's being said on the streets. in this case the numbers and the statisticians belong to the conservatives, but the streets are too smart to follow along.
If Colbert is leading in the ratings, it doesn't matter how much higher the Tonight Show's viewer numbers were 20 years ago. An overall decline in viewership doesn't motivate a network to cancel its top rated show to save money. That show is making more money than its other shows. Dismissing this as just the workings of a dying industry doesn't make sense.
I dont disagree that late night TV is in decline, but do you just accept that it's a total coincidence this happens when CBS wants to suck up to Trump?
STFU, dimwit.
Except that talk shows are among the cheaper shows to make. You don't have to pay for as much talent, writing costs are lower, and production is generally cheaper. It is the reason why a lot of day time television converted from soap operas to talk shows. Hell, a lot of modern podcasts have the format of a talk show.
That the show was just cancelled without any attempt at negotiation sounds fishy.
Good. Controversial take, but his show sucked. You could tell CBS was really censoring him from the moment he jumped from Comedy Central to late night. Maybe he'll start up some new projects and we'll get to see that old Colbert biting satire again.