Andrew Breitbart around 2011: "In five years, it's all gone! The networks, gone! CNN, gone! MSNBC, gone! It's all going down in five years!"
He was wrong.
But he was close.
Newsweek had just reported this was a possibility:
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the liberal faces of their networks, Comedy Central and CBS, respectively. They've been fixtures on the television circuit for decades. But under the second Trump administration and ahead of Paramount's proposed merger with Skydance Media, their futures seem uncertain.
...
So why is the future specifically uncertain for the liberal faces of CBS and Comedy Central? It comes down, in part down to the Paramount-Skydance merger, and Paramount's recent settling of a lawsuit with Trump.
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Skydance was founded by David Ellison in 2006, and his father, Larry Ellison, co-founder of the Oracle Corporation, is also involved in the operation of the company. Larry Ellison is investing $6 billion into the merger and is putting up a majority stake in the deal, according to a 2024 report from The Hill. Both men are Trump supporters.
Newsweek spoke with Matt Navarra, a news personality and social media consultant, about the shifting media landscape and the potential implications on Stewart and Colbert.
...
Newsweek also spoke with Rodney Benson, a professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication and an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Sociology at New York University. He said that "In a future company controlled by Skydance, it's easy to imagine that Stewart's and Colbert's shows could be short-lived."
The old unfunny TV clowns may wind up... doing podcasts. Like all the rest of the Old Media Dinosaurs.
So, what could be an alternative to these old structures? "The thing to watch for is them signing first-look deals with Netflix, HBO or Audible, places that value strong, editorial voices," Navarra said.
...
Navarra also pointed to "podcasts, streaming or independent media," where "permissionless speech will thrive."
Benson, meanwhile, said that, "It's possible to imagine that either show might find a home at Comcast's cable spinoff Versant, either as part of MSNBC or another channel. But Versant may not be particularly eager to be next in line to face the full-scale political wrath of this administration."
Ten days ago, Colbert -- probably already knowing his show was to be cancelled -- got "brave" and attacked his employer for settling with Trump. So that he can claim it was his decision to quit.
Stephen Colbert riffed Paramount Global's $16 million settlement of Donald Trump's lawsuit, calling the payment a "big fat bribe" and joking about the prospects that new owner Skydance will try pressure him to back off from humor directed at the president.
In a clip from Monday's The Late Show posted on social media, Colbert joked in his monologue, "As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended, and I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help."
That is Classic Colbert, by which I mean, it's not funny and sounds like it was written by a retard.
And now: CBS is canceling his show.
Don't get too exited -- he has ten months left before they boot him out.
Though I betcha they'll "mutually agree" to an earlier departure. All Stephen Colbert's decision, doncha know.
Incidentally: Late night "comedy" talk shows are now officially D E A D. CBS isn't just shtcanning Colbert, they're shtcanning the whole expensive, unpopular talk show format.
TV's ongoing problems with late night have come for Stephen Colbert, with CBS announcing Thursday that it plans to end his "Late Show" after the next TV season, citing a "financial decision."
The decision -- which ends years of original late-night programming at CBS that started when the network lured David Letterman from NBC in 1993 -- comes as the economics of wee-hours TV have begun to accelerate, with media companies growing wary of the high price tags involved in producing the shows while the young viewers they try to attract watch more of them via digital video.
"We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire 'The Late Show' franchise" in May of 2026," CBS executives said in a statement. "We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount."
Can we say that Stephen Colbert's radioactive levels of unfunniness killed the entire late show format?
I think we can!
Jimmy Kimmel is already suspected of being on the chopping block -- no one's extending his contract. Jimmy Fallon is a phony bore. Seth Meyers -- you forgot about him, didn't you? -- has been delivering MSNBC/Maddow-style political lectures instead of comedy jokes for years.
They're all done. All of them.
Below, Black Conservative Perspective again, with Stephen Colbert boohoo whinin' and cryin' that his unfunny ratings-basement show is being cancelled.
Well he's not really crying. He's pretending it's all cool with him because he doesn't want to take the additional status hit of crying like a bitch on top of being told he's no longer needed.
He also has a clip of Colbert attacking Paramount on July 7th -- most likely, after he was told they were going to shut his shit-show down, so all of a sudden he felt like a big strong brave boy.