Opinion: Many reasons to lament Late Show cancellation
Was it 'purely a financial decision' for CBS to cancel the Late Show with Stephen Colbert? The network's top-rated late-night comedy was reportedly losing millions, and will wrap up next May. Even Daily Show host Jon Stewart, slamming the decision, conceded the genre is in decline: 'We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside of a Tower Records.'
Not surprisingly, skepticism abounds. It's not just that Colbert's show has earned 33 Emmy nominations, or that it has been the highest-rated late-night talk show on U.S. television for nine consecutive years. It's not even the dodgy timing of the announcement, coming just days after Colbert criticized CBS for settling a lawsuit by U.S. President Donald Trump, which attacked 60 Minutes over an interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris.
OK, it is the timing, but that's not all.
The problem is the broader climate of institutional capitulation: the trail of universities, law firms and news organizations rolling over to meet or anticipate the demands of a demagogue. Before Trump even took office, ABC coughed up $16 million to settle a defamation suit it should have fought. Skating behind that disastrous precedent, CBS failed to defend its flagship news show, 60 Minutes, against a spurious claim, at a time when its parent company, Paramount Global, happens to need federal regulatory approval for its $8-billion merger with Skydance Media.
Colbert caught the axe two days after he told his audience he was 'offended' by Paramount's $16-million settlement, adding the technical name in legal circles was 'big fat bribe.'
Pushback was immediate. Fans, fellow comedians and elected officials speculated Colbert was a political sacrifice. Sen. Elizabeth Warren already had opened an investigation into whether the settlement amounts to bribery.
What's at stake is more than entertainment; it's media independence. The criticisms and witticisms of late-night comedy hold powerful people of all stripes to account, delivering context to audiences with a spoonful of sugar.
The public outrage over Colbert is heartening, but it has an unfortunate downside. The groundswell of indignation is a useful tool to divert attention from Trump's former friendship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which has dominated the news for weeks, despite Trump's best efforts to make it disappear.
Epstein's client list is a particular obsession of Republican conspiracists, who were long promised it would reveal a cabal of child-abusing Democrats. Interest intensified after Elon Musk tweeted Trump himself is in the Epstein files, inspiring a kind of spaghetti toss in the Oval Office. Trump has been flinging every kind of distraction at the wall, hoping something would stick.
Bombing Iran pulled focus briefly, but the scandal bounced back, particularly when the Wall Street Journal reported on Trump's 'bawdy' contribution to Epstein's birthday book. A flurry of absurd presidential declarations about Coca-Cola ingredients, reverting team names to racial slurs, and threatening various arrests have fooled no one, including a fake, AI-generated video of former president Barack Obama being arrested by the FBI, shared on Truth Social. The irony writes itself.
Now, Trump is lingering in Colbert's spotlight. ' I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,' he crowed with typical decorum.
The real tell is that Trump is leaning into the controversy despite being implicated in bribery allegations. In a post, he not only took a victory lap about the Paramount settlement, but amped up speculation, noting he anticipates another $20 million in programming or advertising after the merger.
Did the president invite speculation on network content concessions just to change the channel? To borrow a phrase from Colbert: it has the ring of 'truthiness.'
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