• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 10 hours ago

On the question of why Paramount/CBS is pulling the plug on Stephen Colbert and “The Late Show,” whose side are you on?

Since the announcement last week that “The Late Show” will end for good next May, many have formed the opinion (not necessarily based on fact, but based on other opinions) that Donald Trump pressured the company to cancel Colbert because the comedian made fun of Trump every night.

The other scenario is the one that the company stated in its press release, that it is closing down “The Late Show” for the simple reason that the business model for this kind of traditional late-night show no longer works.

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late-night,” the company said in its announcement last Thursday.

The press release gave no details about the network’s financial troubles in late-night, but somebody else did.

This is standard operation procedure in these types of situations. Issue a vague announcement about something and then strategically leak the details without attribution to a handful of big media outlets.

One of them was The Wall Street Journal. “The Late Show” loses about $40 million a year “according to a person familiar with its budget,” said the WSJ in Saturday. 

The unnamed source said the show’s costs include the band, a staff of 200 people and Colbert’s annual salary of $20 million.

Decisions made in the television business or any other part of the entertainment industry are most often made for reasons of money. This is a given.

On that basis, it is not difficult to believe that CBS would want to bail out of late-night TV because the time period today is losing money.

Abandoning a time period that was once a cash cow is a historic move. It represents a retreat from a form of television that has been a staple for decades.

But other networks are likely thinking along these lines too. In August 2022, the news leaked out of NBC that the network was considering pulling out of the 10-11 p.m. Eastern time period on all seven nights of the week to save money on the high cost of producing the one-hour dramas that traditionally air in the time period.

NBC never carried out this plan, but if it had, it would have represented a retreat even more significant than CBS getting out of late-night. 

Seen in this light, the end of traditional late-night TV on CBS might be the tip of the iceberg for network television.

But the challenges faced by network television in late-night, prime-time or any other time have nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Many have noted that the timing of CBS’s announcement to can Colbert and “The Late Show” came two days after Colbert blasted his own company in his opening monologue.

“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: Big fat bribe!” Colbert said of the settlement Paramount reached with Trump in his lawsuit against “60 Minutes” under which the company agreed to pay Trump $16 million. 

“This all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale to a new owner,” Colbert said.

Without question, the host stepped way out of bounds in attacking the company that pays him $20 million a year.

TV hosts are not like tenured professors. TV hosts can be fired for hammering their own companies on their own companies’ airwaves. 

But if CBS/Paramount was so upset about that, then why keep Colbert on the air for another year? The same question can be asked about so-called pressure from Trump to can Colbert.

If Trump is really using the merger as leverage again, then why would Paramount continue “The Late Show” with Colbert all the way until next spring? Why wouldn’t the company just dump him now to please Trump?

The TV Blog leans much more toward the financial-challenge story than the Trump-conspiracy story.

CBS’s insistence that it is closing down “The Late Show” due to financial considerations rings true for the simple reason that if it turns out to be a big fat lie, then that will be even more embarrassing than the Trump-“60 Minutes” settlement debacle.

I also wonder what made Colbert attack his company on Tuesday. Although the announcement about the end of his show would not be made until two days later, maybe he already knew it was coming.