Colbert Joins TV’s Endangered Species List as CBS Pulls Plug on $40M Loss Machine
By Greg Maresca
Once upon a time in America, late-night television talk shows were a nightly viewing staple for many after they finished their local news. For decades, this enduring format echoed the country’s collective mood, making it the embodiment of the culture’s topical humor.
However, that was when broadcast television only had three commercial networks.
The genre is struggling mightily to find relevance in a deeply fragmented media landscape.
To wit: Effective May 2025, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on CBS was DOGE’d and will join the ash heap of broadcast television history.
Late-night shows’ Nielsen ratings have joined the Javan Rhino on the most endangered list.
Colbert’s defenders say it was the top-rated late-night show. Such an honor nowadays is like being valedictorian of your prison GED class.
The late-night format is like drive-in movies – dead. Today, you can watch the highlights on the internet while getting a whole night’s sleep.
There are at least 40 million reasons why Colbert’s place is being pulled. Colbert’s operation costs north of $100 million yearly, while in 2024 the show hemorrhaged $40 million. Twenty million of it was Colbert’s salary.
Colbert could restructure his contract to offset the network’s losses, saving his staff and show.
Jay Leno gave up 50% of his salary in 2012 to save jobs on The Tonight S w. Colbert is only generous with other people’s money, not his own. Colbert talks big while failing to lead by example and “share the wealth.” The left is so fond of pontificating when it’s other people’s money.
Late-night television has devolved into a medium for nonstop political degradation. The same is true for NBC’s Saturday Night Live, where leftist activism rules the entertainment. Colbert’s decade-long tenure turned The Late Show into a bastion of DNC talking points masquerading as comedy.
Colbert is a conduit for Democrats to attack President Trump and Republicans with nonstop attacks of leftist pablum.
Laughter has been replaced by awkward silences and forced smiles as the left is perpetually offended and judgmental.
Stand-up comedians, once intrepid truth-tellers, now tiptoe around topics like race, gender, and politics, afraid to offend thin-skinned, politically correct sensibilities.
People peek to see if it’s okay to go. The days of raucous, unapologetic humor are as distant a memory as Richard Pryor and George Carlin.
The longtime host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson, was funny, engaging, and gave it to both political parties with a lighthearted heart. Carson went to great lengths to mask his political leanings, focusing on comedic entertainment that found a bipartisan home from sea to shining sea.
Do you know how Carson voted?
Me neither.
Carson’s farewell broadcast in May 1992 drew a staggering 55 million, in an America whose population was 100 million less, making it the highest-rated late-night TV show ever.
Colbert, like the rest of the late-night gang, is banal, humorless, and sanctimonious, and resides in an echo chamber. Jimmy Kimmel used to produce The Man Show, whose introduction had women jumping on trampolines while wearing tight shirts. Now Kimmel is an authority on wokeness and, naturally, women’s rights.
Comedy has been held hostage by left-wing wokesters as comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have noted time and again.
Politics can be humorous, but not to the point of unceasing gratuitous bashing of one party. Then it becomes political activism under the guise of comedy. There was an abundance of Biden and Harris material that ran for four years, yet somehow Colbert missed it. Bernie Sanders reportedly appeared on Colbert’s show at least once. That’s 14 times more than he shows up in Vermont.
Late-night comedy hasn’t been funny for years, while Colbert’s mean-spirited and partisan monologues only underscore our culture’s fragmentation. The old TV test pattern is funnier than Colbert, who has been clowning himself as a partisan hack masquerading as a comedian, confusing hate with humor. People want to be entertained, not lectured to, and insulted by the late-night version of NPR.
If I want to hear nonstop babble and hate from a wrathful leftist, I’ll visit any Planned Parenthood with a sign that says: “Abortion isn’t healthcare – it’s murder.”
The free marketplace corrected the broadcast, proving the adage: “Go Woke, Go Broke.”
Like everything the left touches, it destroys.
Here is where CBS can produce a comedy show that appeals to a broad audience. But with Colbert’s exit not until May, don’t expect anything different.
On deck: The ladies of The View.
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