It really is insane
The end of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show is a concerning nail in the coffin for comedy
The idea that the political career of Donald Trump would be a goldmine for comedy died a long time ago, with the coffin accepting stray nails for the past five years. The latest and possibly last such nail is the cancellation of The Late Show, the CBS late-night talkshow hosted by Stephen Colbert since the fall of 2015, and originated by David Letterman when the network poached him from NBC in 1993. At this point, Trump hasn’t just made topical late-night comedy look outdated, hackneyed and an insufficient response to his reign of terror; he’s also made a chunk of it flat-out go away.
There will be time to eulogize Colbert’s particular talkshow style later; the Late Show isn’t leaving the air for another 10 months, when his contract is up. Surely that leaves plenty more time to savage the president – and Colbert has been in this slot since right around the time Trump became a real contender in the presidential race, so why has this only now come to a head? Seemingly because the axing of the Late Show franchise follows the $16m settlement of a frivolous Trump lawsuit against CBS and their newsmagazine show 60 Minutes over the show’s editing of a 2024 interview with presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Colbert made great fun of his bosses’ payout as a cowardly “bribe” designed to appease the Trump administration, who are in the position to approve or deny the sale of Paramount, the corporate owners of CBS, to the company Skydance. In other words, the pre-merger nixing a comedian who regularly goofs on Trump on network TV seems like a convenient bit of timing – maybe even an unspoken bonus to go along with those millions of dollars.
Shouldn’t late night comedians be, you know, funny? The whole idea was to have light-hearted fluff full of celebs, musicians, comedians, people with animals, etc, where Americans could chill right before bed. Even Al Gore being on with Letterman way back was more funny than political. Johnny Carson intentionally stayed away from politics. Colbert basically made the Late Show a later version of The Daily Show, all hardcore leftist politics. This created a limited audience which would never grow. Which made advertising rates low. They’re advertising to the same people.
And there are all sorts of articles and tweets about it being Trump’s Fault. The Atlantic even tries
Yes, yes it was
CBS brass say they pulled the plug on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” because of its punishing losses — pegged between $40 million and $50?million a year — and claim politics had nothing to do with it, The Post has learned.
The 61-year-old host got canned just days after he took a dig at the Tiffany Network over its $16 million settlement with Donald Trump over a controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris as the network’s parent Paramount negotiates with the Trump administration regulatory approval for its $8?billion sale to independent studio Skydance.
“I am offended, and I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,” Colbert said of the truce in his Monday night monologue.
But scathing jokes at the expense of CBS brass wasn’t the problem, according to insiders.
And right there’s a problem: scathing jokes, instead of light-hearted jokes. Colbert was getting paid around $20 million a year for a limited audience, and his show cost way, way too much to produce, with way too many people working on it (I’ve heard about 200 employees)
Instead, the network’s bosses could no longer stomach the fact that Colbert has been plagued with an increasingly dire shortage of advertisers.
That’s despite Colbert’s No, 1 ratings in his time slot and his status as a key face for the Tiffany Network.
Have you ever watched a show and you see the same limited advertisers? That’s the Late Show. With low monetary rates for ads.
Lying liar who tells lies. Maybe she should be more concerned with the lawlessness in Boston from all the illegals. Colbert was preaching to his high end liberal pals, was not funny, not interesting. He didn’t have random people turning in.
I wonder what they will replace it with. It is also worth noting that people are freaking out about something that won’t happen until next year, long after the attention span of the average leftist Colbert viewer. Will they be expected to get all upset all over again? If the network is smart, they will spend this time seeking a good alternative and hyping how awesome it will be.
Programming changes. That is what normal looks like.
We told you so and now we have the empirical evidence.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard refers evidence to DOJ, says accountability is ‘critical’ for preserving American democracy
Many need to go to jail for this.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-officials-admitted-had-no-empirical-evidence-trump-russia-collusion-house-intel-transcripts
Bribery to do what, exactly, One-Drop Warren? What nefarious thing was Trump supposed to do for Paramount in exchange for $16 million?
So lemme get this straight: Paramount has to pay Trump $16 million so Paramount can cancel their own money-losing show? What, is there a Trump-appointed district judge who issued a nationwide injunction against corporate media cutting off funding for money-hemorrhaging enterprises and the $16 mil was to get the judge to change his mind?
If the show was losing that kind of money, I’m surprised it lasted this long.
Late night talk shows are all losing money for their networks. The times they are a changin’. Too many other options.
Our conservative brethren all watch FOX anyway. All normal and left of normal folks watch something else. If anything at all.
But also…
Acquiescing to bully only leads to more bullying. They are never “appeased”.
Anyway, trump is the perfect target:
Let’s face it. Orange Don is conducting a Cultural Revolution – attacking intellectuals, empathy, universities, immigrants, other nations, scientists and science, libraries, research, medicine, knowledge, comedians, media, history, debate, reporters… straight out of the dictator’s playbook.
We had heightened tensions with Russia under Biden ?
Regrettable
We have Russia openly talking about using nuclear weapons with current POTUS ????
We have Trump cultists trying desperately trying to understand and explain Trump’s no weapons/ more weapons policies with Ukraine? Constantly lying “obliterated Iran’s nukes” to damaged. 1 site very little delay (1 to 2 months)
Zero ! Uranium hexafluoride gas released/zero evidence of any enriched uranium destroyed
Trump immediately denied writing porny bday card to Epstein with drawing of a girl with small breasts, says he never made any drawings, 10 mins later internet is flooded with signed drawings including some sold at auction
Is that lying ? Or cognitive decline?
There is ample evidence to support both.
trump is a lifelong bullshitter – saying what he needs to say at the time to survive.
Everyone can see his obvious cognitive decline. The last four years have not been kind to him. He should step down. Jay Dee Vance is a horrible, unethical, amoral person just like trump, but he still has his faculties. trump is a gomer.
The socialist sycophant from St Louis wrote:
One wonders: did the esteemed Mr Dowd say that about Joe Biden?
After 6 months the Dow is 2%. UNDER the Biden high teacher last Dec
???? And the tariffs (paid by consumers) haven’t really kicked in yet
What if it was? The left has cancelled, or attempted to cancel, numerous individuals and entities for political reasons (see cancel culture) so it’s about time they got a taste of their own, putrid medicine. Now do Kimmel.
Not Cancel culture since no one was demanding Late show be cancelled. I was just the network suits doing what they do.
The left is losing and they can’t help it.
Dems at 19% favorability.
BWAHA! Lolgfy Losers!
MAGA47 Winning!
MAGA47 Motherfuckers.
The inimitable comedian and actor Bob Newhart passed away Thursday. He was 94.
One of my favorites, being from he Ozark hills…