Editorial: Stephen Colbert roasted bosses and took risks. Bravo.
It's incontrovertible that the late-night network audience is declining and aging as younger viewers increasingly get their comedy content from TikTok,YouTube and the like. These days, most people watch Colbert and his wee-hour colleagues in sliced bites posted later on social media.
Reuters reported that advertising revenue for Colbert's show has dropped 40% since 2018 (down from $121.1 million in 2018 to just $70.2 million last year) as his audience has declined. More significantly, the news service also cited an internal source saying the costly show has been losing $40 million a year, hardly ideal for a company in business to make a profit. And it's not like CBS sudden pulled the plug to de-platform a pesky host: Colbert's show has 10 more months to run and he'll go out a hero to the left.
Still, many progressives, including some political leaders, saw a nefarious motive and a brazen attempt to silence an outspoken liberal voice. Today's late-night hosts don't gently rib their bosses in the Johnny Carson or David Letterman modes; they castigate them. Just a few days ago, Colbert criticized the $16 million financial settlement between President Donald Trump and Paramount over a CBS '60 Minutes' story, saying, 'I don't know if anything — anything — will repair my trust in this company. But, just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help.'
For the record, we thought Trump's lawsuit over routine editing practices was bogus and thus the settlement regrettable and even chilling. But anyone who works for a corporation knows that dissing your bosses on that level always carries risks. At some point, somebody in power is likely to say, 'We get all this criticism from the outside and we can't control that, but this guy works for us?'
Nonetheless, we're admiring of Colbert for taking those risks and we like to hope that CBS, which has more than its share of good people who support free speech, would have continued to tolerate them if the show was making money. Late-night shows are left-leaning because that has matched who is watching at that hour; CBS' problem is not so much disliking that audience as seeing it disappear. By giving the show that 10-month off ramp, the network has a chance to recoup its losses, and the host and his staff have the chance for lots of unfettered comedic and political creativity. It can be freeing to know you are on your way out.
Colbert, of course, is a generational talent. We remember him starting out at the Second City in Chicago and, more specifically, at that theater's old suburban outpost astride Interstate 90 and known as Second City Northwest. In the years that followed, Colbert, a graduate of Northwestern University, gave back to Chicago many times, supporting the Lookingglass Theatre in its hours of need and several of his friends here in their's. He's a good guy and he'll have plenty more opportunities ahead of him. We won't be surprised to see him outlast his bosses and his nemesis in the White House.
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