tl;dr - Late Night was killed by the Internet. This has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with the increasing irrelevance of television.
Everyone keeps suggesting this is because of Trump but you’re ignoring what has been happening to both the Late Show and Late Night in general for years. The entire format is dying. Most people don’t watch the show live anymore, they do it on YouTube. Financially that’s not viable for the studios. The cost they put into it doesn’t equal out over the amount they can get back from YouTube. It doesn’t make financial sense for them to keep making the show when no one is watching it on its primary method. They could try to pivot the entire show to YouTube but that also would be kinda hard to justify the cost.
Television is dying. Jon Stewart has come out saying that Paramount is ‘risking Late Night’ but… it isn’t Paramount. It’s people. No one watches it anymore. Who wants to watch constant ads
Now if you want to take Politics into account, it shows how Late Night is on life support even worse. First off, the entire market is saturated. You’ve got too many Late Night hosts to choose from, all of them in essentially the time slot or close to it. All of them then talk about the exact same thing. The only thing you’re watching one show over the other for is the host or the guests that episode. Then there’s the focus on American politics which makes sense because it’s an American show but it alienates people outside the country from watching it on YouTube. And due to it having a heavy focus on American politics, like a lot does now a days, a lot of people are exhausted and don’t want to tune in. They want an escape not another reminder.
Seth Meyers is probably the only host who could easily survive this. Fallon and Kimmel have way too much money dumped into their shows. Meyers runs everything on a shoestring and has a hard focus on politics, not splitting his attention. He focuses the majority of his non-Guest screentime on politics with stuff like A Closer Look as well so his show doesn’t feel quite as pulled in two directions. The guest conversations are also super relaxed and casual, seeming to focus more on smaller celebrities than having constant big ones.
Love Colbert but I haven’t seen his show since December. Partially because of what I listed above, partially because he really leaned into the “Oh this is such a horrible tragedy and we must feel for the family of Brian and how horrible of a person Luigi is” garbage. Considering Colbert has never shyed away from telling off the CBS bosses, that was his own personal decision.
Then there’s the fact that I’m a Canadian. Hearing some of the shit that both him and other hosts had to say during these constant threats to my nations sovereignty was genuinely enraging. Kimmel tried to do a PuckOff thing where “Angry canadians message us videos for us to laugh at!” which, as far as I’m aware, went NO WHERE because every Canadian just got furious at him. Trump wants to use us for his own purposes and Kimmel went “Lets do the same thing!”
not reading all that
Bro the tl;dr was at the top of the comment
Sure, Jan.
TBH, I haven’t watched late night television since we lost Letterman, Ferguson and O’Brien.
We will never again see the likes of:
or:
or:
If you prefer long form humor:
Ferguson was legend!
I didn’t even know he was sick
This sucks to see. Hopefully he’ll get picked up somewhere else and go back to a format closer to what the Colbert report used to be.
Yeah I didn’t really enjoy prim and proper corporate Colbert. His show was pretty mediocre. I believe it was also his decision to step away from his original persona and move on to a standard talk show host, so he actually wanted that change. Ferguson is still the GOAT for me.
I miss Craig Ferguson so much!
Balls.
I thought it was because Comedy Central had a claimed trademark or something regarding the character he played, but it’s been a while so I might be misremembering
No way CBS would have allowed him to do the show in that character… Maybe a segment every now and then, but not entire episodes. Not on CBS.
He quite literally was legally disallowed by Viacom (Comedy Central’ owners). Not CBS, where he told the audience he would love to bring the character back but was not legally allowed to do.
He didn’t want to mix the Colbert character with the Late Night show.
Irrelevant and refuted by Colbert’s own words, but ok. Viacom quite literally wouldn’t allow it.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/stephen-colbert-colbert-report-character-915236/
But on Wednesday night’s Late Show, the real Stephen Colbert indicated that Comedy Central’s legal team is barring his old character from appearing on CBS.
“This is true, immediately after that show, CBS’ top lawyer was contacted by the top lawyer for another company to say that the character Stephen Colbert is their intellectual property,” the real Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday.
He continued, “So it is with a heavy heart that I announce that thanks to corporate lawyers, the character Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, will never be seen again.”
The audience began to boo but the Late Show host insisted there was nothing he could do.
“I feel the same way, but what can I do? The lawyers have spoken. I cannot reasonably argue I own my face or name,” he said. “And as much as I’d like to have that guy on again, I can’t.”
That refers to a bit he did with the Colbert character over a year into the run of the show. He has said in various interviews that he chose not to do the Late Show in any character because he felt he’d done that and it would be disrespectful to the franchise.
Or go back to doing shit like Strangers with Candy
The Colbert Report would be difficult to reformulate due to Colbert’s prominence and the fact that he’s been, ahem…overt…with his political opinions since he gave up the character. As ridiculous as it sounds, a lot of people literally thought he was conservative when he was doing the character both on Daily Show and Colbert Report, which afforded him a lot of opportunity to play it up. I don’t think that would be the case if he went back. Plus, a few critical writers who contributed to segments like “The Word” moved on towards the end of Colbert Report, and I think they were really critical to the quality of the show that “Late Show” never quite mayched…
…Or maybe he could just dive right back in and it would be awesome. What do I know about show business I’m just some guy.
I’m kinda with this. He was the absolute best on the Colbert Report, but the second he went mainstream, he lost his luster. Hopefully he finds a new show to host where he can get back to his roots.
This was part of CBS’ bribery payment, along with the $16 million to settle the 60 Minutes case, which would have been an easy win in court.
ABC and CBS have been compromised and have paid bribes. When will he go after NBC?
Get him and John Stewart back together. Throw in some John Oliver, too.
HBO should pick up both of them and their crew, and let someone other than John publicly eviscerate them during every show. HBO execs get off from the abuse! They could get 2x more of it, and less British accent!
Unfortunately
HBOHBO MAXMAXHBO MAX is run by a complete moron.Moron or not, they have John Oliver and despite him shitting on them on almost every show, he remains and persists. Honestly, this would be prime time to pick up these two cause their audience will follow them no matter where they go!
No, they should all go to PBS so it’s (for now) freely available to everyone. Have them ask for donations to keep it going, PBS/NPR would be good for at least a while.
They’re about to be defunded.
The fed govt only very partially funded them, the rest was donations. Which, at least from me, are going up substantially.
Are you trying to print gold?! CAUSE THAT’S YOUR YOU PRINT GOLD!
I just got dat might-ass-touch, baby!
With that trio they could have the Top Gear of late night.
If he wants to continue he should just produce his show on his own and air it on YouTube. No one really watches broadcast tv anymore.
Jon Stewart should do the same.
Holy shit, killing off the late show? It’s an institution
This can only mean that CBS are pedos too?
Nobody gives a shit about late night TV anymore but boomers. I mean the entire concept has been obsolete for years now due to streaming… Anyone under the age of 55 just watches clips on YouTube if anything from the show was worth watching.
TBF it only started because Letterman got fucked over and CBS wanted to compete with the Tonight Show. It’s been around for a long time but not nearly as long as – okay I’m old.
They fucked over Conan too, he was supposed to get Leno’s spot but they switched it on him at the last moment
Fuck Leno and fuck NBC.
happened right after 16million lawsuit paid to trump by cbs, and after he criticized him.
It’s because they want to do the Skydance merger.
The “financial decision” is “We want money money money money, we’ll do anything! Look! Look! We’ll fuckin’ fire one of our highest rating earners. You like that, Papa T? We did that to make you love us ;)”
kinda wierd people are denying its not because of trump in this thread, multiple subs are already reporting including other talk show host indicated it was a threat-based cancellation. some of the users got mad because nutrek was axed by paramount, eventhough the franchise in its current form is terrible other someone like kurtzman.
STEWART/COLBERT 2028
That would be a dream come true
I used to watch “Late shows” on YouTube, but after the 2nd time Trump got elected, I stopped consuming any political content from the US, and again after the “Liberation Day”, I stopped consuming any US produced media (including YouTube content creators). I just can’t deal with so much “Trump content”, nor do I want to keep to, in any manner, help content that thrives on that.
I just can’t deal with a second season of “The House of Trump”.
I’m not implying that this is why it got cancelled, just expressing the reason to why I even stopped watching it, on YouTube. Can’t say if others have done the same or not, but following American politics is… exhausting.
Conan is the only one worth watching/listening to. Hardly ever gets into politics.
Funniest podcast available too imo (well, maybe that or Bonanas for Bonanza)
I do love Conan. But he only has a podcast now, right? I loved those bits about “Fan Corrections”! LOL
He’s got an amazing travel show on HBO Max, but each season only has a handful of episodes. But other than that, yeah pretty much.
His podcast is outstanding, and the longer form interviews show how much funnier he is than he could ever be within the format of a late night show.
They also have a fan segment every week, in addition to the normal episode, where they have a fan on for like 20 min or something
I’ll have to check it out then, thanks for the suggestion! ♥
Do it! Every episode is hilarious, but the ones with Martin Short are always hysterical if you wanted a recommendation for where to start…
If you do like it, I would suggest considering starting from the beginning, as it’s really fucking funny to listen to how his relationship with producer and co-host Matt Gourley has evolved.
Also, Sona is on it and she’s awesome.
You think it’s exhausting, try living in it.
My parents already lived through a dictatorship, and I know the struggles that came along with it, including a post-colonial war and being subject to a thought police, that persecuted and prosecuted anyone, just for owning specific books, many of which were not even political. So while I have not lived through it, my parents did, much worse than you, and I was raised in a post-dictatorship regime completely aware of what the previous generation had to go through, thank you very much!
And has the old saying goes… “Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat itself”, and considering you are on the second Trump term, just after a 4 year hiatus, you guys must have the memory of a gold fish.
PS - I had a much longer and extensive post originally, but quite honestly, I do not want to enter a debate about this. But what you guys need is though love. In fact I believe that the only way that the US can escape the current political paradigm, is if you go full dictatorship, live under it for a few decades, and finally have a revolution. You are constantly on a situation where you move 1 step ahead, and 2 backwards, shifting between Democrats and Republicans, and with neither having the will to make a meaningful change to the system. I could say much much much more, but I wont, if only because, I no longer have the bandwidth for US politics, as I have already stated!
Good luck!
“Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat itself”
This is supposed to be cautionary, but for Republicans, it’s been a game plan.
Yes, absolutely, and they are right, in the sense that it is a good plan to achieve their goals, along with blocking education to people! Because not only people have a very short memory, but most are ignorant and lack education to make an informed choice that benefits them.
My fraternal grandmother, even after the dictatorship ended, continued to praise the oppressive regime, until she died, and she was barely literate! And this is one of the reasons to why I believe that US citizens really need to understand what it means to lose their freedoms and liberties. Because at least, those who just have a short memory, will remember more easily… The uneducated ones, or the fundamentalist evangelist zealots… those are a lost cause!
There are already reports, that the literacy rating is declining in the US, on both adults and children. I think it’s pretty clear what this will lead to… And you know why am so fucking exhausted? Because I also think that the left in the US is responsible for your current situation. If Trump was never elected in 2016, that would have served as a rebuke to Trumpism and to the erosion of political norms… The republicans would continue to be republicans, but not sycophants that enabled their party to turn into a cult!
And at least from my personal perspective, I went above and beyond to try to convince the Americans friends I had online, to not get complacent! At the time, I ran a website that was dedicated mostly to a gay community, and around 50% of the users were from the US. The site had around 300k users, and I made a post appealing to every American on the site to please go vote, and tried to, with little to no success, convince the guys I was closer to, to please vote on Hillary. I’m not sure I was able to breakthrough, and many of them, sometimes would even reply to me aggressively, that they would never vote for Hillary.
I’m a progressive… I would have loved to see Bernie get nominated in the primary, but sadly, that didn’t happened… And even Bernie, also ended up endorsing Hillary. And I’m tired of hearing Americans blaming exclusively the Democrats when they, who have the power to vote, decline any responsibility on the matter. Everyone is to be blamed, from top to bottom. So yes… I’m exhausted because the progressive left in the US, is aiming for the Moon, and ends up shooting their own foot, and fuck the rest of the world in the process! Aim lower… AIM LOCAL! I know you guys have that stupid law that parties can only receive funds for campaign if they have at least get 5% of the votes in the preceding election, and above that you have the electoral college. It’s all fucked up! So you either start doing it slowly, and locally first, so you can very slowly put more and more progressives in government, or if you’re waiting to suddenly reach Mars like Elon, you will fail MISERABLY! And now, you are seeing the consequences of that failure.
Again, I’m sorry for the long long “rant”, but I’ve tried to help as much as I possibly could, and it makes me sad to see this happening, also because, the rise of right-wing all around the world, and specially in Europe, was also propelled by the immense cultural power and reach the US has. Even things we did not used to have like vaccine hesitancy, or crazy conspiracies like “the Moon landing is fake”, have now become part of the daily discourse in here, when this was absolutely never an issue before. The US political propaganda, on the Internet, not only it affected the US, but it has also affected Europe. Brexit was also result of that.
I hope people understand why it’s also very exhausting to everyone else, even when not being a US citizen. We are suffering the consequences of your (in)actions, and without any power to turn the tide.
Again, good luck to everyone, we are going to need it!
Criticized Trump. Had to go or the merger was not going to be approved by Trump’s ass-suckers.
Or mb this echochamber isn’t financially viable
If echo chambers weren’t financially viable then Fox News wouldn’t exist.
Said “this” talking specifically about this one and not all of them. It s just that mainstream leftist political commentator are an endanger species. U got the place for 20 year it s simply normal that the opinion siwtch at one point
Yeah, the last 20 years has been nothing but anarchists and communists blasting the airwaves with leftist agit-prop.
Might I recommend not hitting the pipe before logging on?
Or perhaps they should go outside and feel the sun on the parchment they call skin.
You’ve no idea where true center is, do you?
Colbert isn’t a leftist, a liberal maybe. Most of americans are liberal to some degree.
He’s also a devout Catholic too which are not all the most leftists of folks.
fox is owned by murdoch’s fox company, they arnt owned by a single network, like cbs, abc, or xfinity.
The show is like 2% of the entire company’s revenue. You don’t just cut your biggest property for “financial reasons”.
CBS is a bunch of trumps cucks.
I hope he uses this to go off the rails going into the election summer
He’s done in March 2026 though.
I thought he said May, but, anyway, I said going into the election summer
Edit : the midterms
Oh, my bad, it is May. I hope just his show going off the air helps drive enough attention to whatever he does next.
At least there’s a decent amount of time for his team to plan a new project, or leave the US or whatever.
I see some sort of streaming show or HBO. No way he and his writing team all leave the US. I don’t even know who could give him a decent platform anyway
As much as I would love an uncensored Colbert, HBO Max/Max/HBO already has John Oliver. And they kinda occupy the same entertainment niche. They are not going to cannibalize their own ratings of that big draw.
They could do it,the same way everyone was on Comedy Central. That worked and they complimented each other. Besides, Oliver is once a week. I bet a lot of people, myself included, already watch both of the shows
Very true. Just something on the snoo site that I liked. What if HBO fired bill Maher and replaced him with Colbert.
