Jimmy Kimmel addressed the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show in a blistering takedown, making sure to call attention to the obvious “lies” CBS told about ending “The Late Show” next year.
Kimmel appeared on Ted Danson’s podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” on Tuesday, and said that people will likely never know the full story of why Colbert’s show was canceled ― but he has some thoughts.
Danson asked if the move by Paramount, which owns CBS, was a case of “quid pro quo” — in which the company sacked a prominent Trump critic in exchange for securing the go-ahead from the Trump administration for its merger plans.
“We don’t know for sure,” Kimmel said. “What I do know for sure is that some of the information that has been released by the people who let him go can’t possibly be true. There’s no way he’s losing $40 million a year.”
“There’s no way it’s even close to that,” the late night show host added. “I know how finances of late night television shows work, and it’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“So, when you hear things that are obviously lies, you have to assume that there are more lies behind it. And that’s what I think,” he said.
Paramount canceled “The Late Show” after Colbert criticized the company for paying a $16 million settlement to Trump while it tried to get the administration’s permission to merge with Skydance Media.
Paramount said that “The Late Show” cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” something fellow TV host and Bravo executive Andy Cohen also doesn’t totally agree with.
“I think it is possible that it’s losing money,” Cohen said on SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live” in July of Colbert’s show. But he explained that what CBS could’ve done “if a show is losing money that is also super important to the network.”
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“They would probably do is say, listen, Stephen, your show is losing X amount of money a year. There’s two things we could do,” he shared. “We could cut the budget in half, maybe move out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, do the show in a small studio that we already own, because CBS has a lot of studio space.”
The company could’ve also cut staff or slimmed Colbert’s filming schedule. While a network might start with those reductions and then reevaluate Colbert and his show’s standings, none of that happened.
“Instead, they’re turning the lights out completely at 11:30, which says to me, it’s like CBS is just cooked,” Cohen said. “They are saying, ‘We are done.’”