{"id":20397,"date":"2025-07-19T02:04:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T02:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20397\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T02:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T02:04:08","slug":"cbs-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-is-more-than-just-a-financial-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/20397\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS ending \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d is more than just a financial loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

CBS brass say they pulled the plug on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d because of its punishing losses \u2014 pegged between $40 million and $50\u2009million a year \u2014 and claim politics had nothing to do with it, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> over a controversial \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with Kamala Harris<\/a> as the network\u2019s parent Paramount negotiates with the Trump administration regulatory approval for its $8\u2009billion sale to independent studio Skydance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am offended, and I don\u2019t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,\u201d Colbert said of the truce in his Monday night monologue. <\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert announces the cancellation Of \u201cThe Late Show.\u201d The Late Show with Stephen Colb<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just taking a stab at it, I\u2019d say $16 million would help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharles Gasparino<\/p>\n

\u2018Gets no advertising\u2019<\/p>\n

But scathing jokes at the expense of CBS brass wasn\u2019t the problem, according to insiders. <\/p>\n

Instead, the network\u2019s bosses could no longer stomach the fact that Colbert has been plagued with an increasingly dire shortage of advertisers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite Colbert\u2019s No, 1 ratings in his time slot and his status as a key face for the Tiffany Network. <\/p>\n

In the end, Paramount\u2019s co-CEO George Cheeks<\/a> decided to kill the show, sources said.<\/p>\n

\u201cColbert gets no advertising and late night is a tough spot,\u201d said a person with direct knowledge of CBS\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n

\u201cColbert might be No. 1, but who watches late night TV anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Democrats voiced suspicion, citing the host\u2019s left-wing leanings and CBS owner Paramount\u2019s urgent need to gain an OK from the Trump administration for the merger with Skydance, the Hollywood studio behind the \u201cMission: Impossible\u201d franchise.<\/p>\n

People walk past the Ed Sullivan Theater, where \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d is taped, in New York. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cCBS canceled Colbert\u2019s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump \u2014 a deal that looks like bribery,\u201d lefty Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skydance CEO David Ellison<\/a> is the son of Donald Trump pal and tech billionaire Larry Ellison<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As The Post first reported, CBS just paid $16 million to Trump and has agreed to run millions of dollars more in MAGA-friendly ads to settle the president\u2019s lawsuit alleging that \u201c60 Minutes\u201d deceptively edited its 2024 interview with Kamala Harris to make her look better.<\/p>\n

Trump, meanwhile, celebrated Colbert\u2019s canning in a Friday morning post on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely love that Colbert got fired,\u201d the president wrote. <\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert arrives for the Saturday Night Live 50: The Anniversary Special at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, U.S., February 16, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cHis talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!\u201d<\/p>\n

Fervent denials<\/p>\n

But despite Ellison\u2019s Trump ties, sources said Skydance and its partners at Redbird Capital \u2014 the private equity firm that will help run CBS once the deal is cleared \u2014 only heard the news of the show\u2019s impending cancellation just before it was announced late Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSkydance had nothing to do with this,\u201d one person close to the decision said. <\/p>\n

\u201cColbert loses $40 million to $50 million a year, so George Cheeks just decided to pull the plug.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s dominance in its time slot belies sharp declines in viewership as younger viewers move away from traditional TV.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Late Show\u201d boasts nearly 2 million total viewers and 200,000 viewers in the key 25-24 \u201cdemo\u201d \u2014 making it No. 1 in its time slot.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, that\u2019s a sharp decline versus the numbers it racked up in its heyday. <\/p>\n

The ad data firm Guideline estimates that CBS\u2019s late-night shows together drew $220 million in ad revenue in 2024 \u2014 just half the $439 million they drew in 2018.<\/p>\n

RedBird\u2019s Jeff Shell, the former head of NBCUniversal who will run the network once the deal is done, has been crunching the numbers and finding that CBS is a \u201cmelting ice cube\u201d with its losses and cost overruns, a source said.<\/p>\n

The Ed Sullivan Theater, where the \u2018Late Show\u201d is recorded live, stands in midtown Manhattan on July 18, 2025, in New York City. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u2018Truth-based\u2019 turn<\/p>\n

The plan is to enhance CBS Sports and invest in \u201ctruth-based\u201d news at a network that conservatives have long ripped for its alleged liberal bias.<\/p>\n

A Paramount spokesman declined to comment and would not deny that massive losses were tied to the show\u2019s cancellation.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s lawsuit was impeding the approval of the deal by the Trump Federal Communications Commission. <\/p>\n

The Post has learned that Ellison is now telling people that with the lawsuit settled the Skydance-Paramount deal will get FCC approval by mid-August.<\/p>\n

While Ellison is predicting imminent regulatory approval, it will come at a cost: FCC chairman Brendan Carr is likely to demand conditions to remedy what he believes is left-wing news bias in programming that violates agency \u201cpublic interest\u201d rules that govern local broadcasting as opposed to cable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CBS brass say they pulled the plug on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d because of its punishing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[28,991,12,88,13728,10815,18533,4208,111,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-20397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cbs","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","13":"tag-media","14":"tag-mergers-acquisitions","15":"tag-paramount","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}