{"id":51230,"date":"2025-08-07T20:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T20:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51230\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T20:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T20:29:07","slug":"the-economics-made-it-a-challenge-cbs-boss-talks-stephen-colbert-cancellation-stephen-colbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/51230\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The economics made it a challenge\u2019: CBS boss talks Stephen Colbert cancellation | Stephen Colbert"},"content":{"rendered":"

After much media consternation and criticism over the cancellation<\/a> of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>, CBS<\/a> chief has spoken up about the company\u2019s decision to end the television institution after 32 years.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press conference<\/a> following the takeover of Paramount by the media conglomerate Skydance, George Cheeks, the chair of TV media at the company, attributed the cancellation to financial headwinds faced by the format.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge in late night is that the advertising marketplace is in significant secular decline,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are huge fans of Colbert, we love the show. Unfortunately the economics made it a challenge for us to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheeks added that as soon as Taylor Tomlinson, the 31-year-old former host of After Midnight, declined to return for another season in the slot formerly occupied by the Late Late Show with James Corden, he knew the network \u201ccouldn\u2019t stay in that daypart\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know [Skydance] is going to invest, but they\u2019re going to invest cautiously and wisely,\u201d he said, indicating a focus on primetime and sports.<\/p>\n

Many had criticized the decision to cancel Colbert during a crucial window in the merger of Paramount and Skydance, which depended on approval from the Trump administration to proceed. The cancellation came just two days after Colbert publicly criticized his parent company\u2019s settlement with Trump over a \u201cfrivolous\u201d lawsuit regarding a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. During one of his monologues, Colbert referred to the $16m paid by Paramount to Trump a \u201cbig fat bribe\u201d to approve the $8.4bn merger.<\/p>\n

Colbert\u2019s announcement that his show would end next year was met with an outpouring of support from celebrities<\/a>, as well as speculation<\/a> that the decision was another effort by Paramount to appease Trump as well as the Skydance head, Larry Ellison, who has close ties with the president.<\/p>\n

But Cheeks said the decision was financial, following reports that the Late Show, which premiered in August 1993 with David Letterman as host, was losing upwards of $40m a year. The late-night genre as a whole has faced significant financial challenges in recent years, with ad revenue plummeting 50% from just seven years ago. Cheeks declined to confirm how much the Late Show was losing, even as the ratings leader in the field for close to a decade, but said it was \u201csignificant\u201d and in the \u201ctens of millions of dollars\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, it just wasn\u2019t sustainable to continue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cheeks, who came up in late night at NBC, also said that the timing for the decision came down to contract renewals for crew, including writers and producers. \u201cWe were at a period from a production standpoint where every year seasonally, this is [when] we negotiate new deals for writers and producers,\u201d he said. \u201cIn addition, this is going to be the third season of Colbert\u2019s three-year deal. So, in order to do those deals, we were going to have to change the terms from what we traditionally are, September to August, to September to May.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was it incumbent upon me and us to make it clear to Stephen and his reps that this is where we were,\u201d he added, noting that it was \u201ctoo early to speculate\u201d on what might replace the program in the 11.35pm ET time slot.<\/p>\n

Colbert will continue to host the show four nights a week until April 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After much media consternation and criticism over the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, CBS chief…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-51230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}