In Washington, Democratic politicians are calling for a congressional investigation, while in New York, the Writers’ Guild is asking New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) for a state probe. No, the issue is not the use of the autopen by Biden staff to carry out presidential functions or the crisis in public education. No, it is the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” by CBS.
The outrage over the show’s cancellation is the latest example of presumed entitlement from the left, which suggests that the government, universities, and corporations should subsidize their preferred news and entertainment. Call it the NPR syndrome.
I wrote this weekend about the withdrawal of the government subsidy for NPR and the outrage of its overwhelmingly white, affluent, and liberal audience. Democrats in Congress and NPR’s shrinking listeners were appalled that the American taxpayers would not be required to fund the overwhelmingly liberal outlet. It appears that they are entitled to such federal money even though NPR is dropping in both its audience and revenues.
The outrage of Democratic politicians is hardly surprising. Like NPR, The Late Night Show was used to amplify Democratic talking points. Some of those objecting the loudest were favored guests. Indeed, the show had long ago traded the comedic stylings of prior guests like George Carlin and Don Rickles for the knee-slapping standups of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D., Cal.).
As Joe Concha recently noted, Warren, 76, appeared 16 times during the show’s ten-year run.
He offered a funereal opening after Trump’s election:
Colbert turned his monologues into diatribes against Donald Trump, Republicans, and most everyone to the right of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., NY), another regular guest. Socialist Bernie Sander (I., Vt) was one of Colbert’s most frequent guests followed by figures such as CBS anchor Gayle King (14 appearnces), CNN anchor Jake Tapper (12 appearances), and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (8 appearances). Note figures like Tapper had their own collapsing ratings but were still regulars for Colbert.
It did not matter that over half of this country is conservative or libertarian or that over 77 million Americans voted for Trump.
This cringeworthy video is effectively what the audience saw every night as Colbert sought to repackage comedy with orthodoxy:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on X that “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.” She is right but an investigation is the last thing that liberals should want.
While many are pushing the false claim that the Late Show was a roaring success and number one among late night talk shows, the fact is that Colbert had run the show into the ground.
As Charles Gasparino discussed recently, the show was imposing “punishing losses — pegged between $40 million and $50 million a year” on Paramount at a time when the parent company was trying to sell CBS.
Colbert publicly slammed his employer on the show in settling a case with Trump for $16 million.
However, Colbert seemed more obsessed with pushing his political message than ratings.
Media companies are not in the habit of cancelling profit-making, successful shows, particularly not CBS which has just two prime time shows in the Top 15.
The fact is that Colbert was over paid and underperforming.
Colbert was reportedly pulling in between $15-$20 million as his show was losing $40 million a year. The show had over 100 staffers and cost $130 million to produce.
Advertisers had fled the show, clearly seeing Colbert’s shrinking audience as not a draw for spots. It is a pattern seen on the other largely left-leaning shows.
As Concha noted: “late-night shows on ABC, NBC, and CBS earned $439 million in ad revenue in 2018 combined, but just $220 million in 2024. That’s a 50% decline in less than seven years.”
In comparison, Greg Gutfeld had long trounced Colbert and the other late night shows with a relatively small staff and budget. Viewers were flocking to Fox for his content as the other late night show with a conservative perspective.
Yet, there remains the outrage. Liberal politicians and viewers seem to believe that they are entitled to shows, movies and news programs that maintain their echo chamber. Likewise, celebrities such as Rachel Zegler cratered their movies with controversial political declarations.
Now, despite losing tens of millions of dollars a year, liberals seem to believe that Paramount should subsidize an unfunny show with declining viewership. It is the same mentality of Washington Post writers who were outraged when their new editor told that that they were losing money and “people are not reading your stuff.” They expected billionaire Jeff Bezos to run the Post like a vanity project regardless of their losses or that they were primarily writing for each other. They were wrong just as Colbert was wrong.
Colbert believed that he could tailor his show to less than half of the country and bring in a slew of liberal politicians and media figures who were themselves losing elections and ratings. I cannot imagine why that business plan would fail.