John Oliver mourns ‘incredibly sad' cancellation of Stephen Colbert's The Late Show
Oliver, who hosts HBO's Last Week Tonight and has been Colbert's most frequent guest, was asked about Paramount's decision to pull the plug on the top-rated program during a promotional event for the Erie Moon Mammoths, a minor league team that Oliver and his staff recently rebranded.
'I love Stephen, I love his staff. I love that show. It's incredibly sad,' Oliver bemoaned. 'I'm partly excited to see what they're going to do for the next 10 months, but yeah, it's terrible, terrible news for the world of comedy.'
CBS staff were left 'stunned' last week when executives at the network and its parent company Paramount announced that The Late Show would end its 33-year run next May, claiming it was a 'purely financial decision' due to the prohibitive costs of late-night television amid dwindling ad revenues as the entertainment world increasingly turns to streaming.
While network staffers acknowledged that Colbert's program was 'very expensive to produce' and that it may have been 'on the chopping block' in recent years, no one at CBS 'is buying that it's a financial decision.' Instead, the belief is that the show's demise is politically motivated.
'Many of us think this was part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement,' one CBS insider told The Independent after the announcement.
Indeed, the cancellation of The Late Show comes just a few weeks after Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a 'meritless' lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, which the president claimed was 'election interference.' Paramount is in the midst of finalizing an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media, a production company financed by pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David, whom the president has personally lauded.
With the merger requiring final approval from the Trump administration, Democratic lawmakers and free press advocates have accused Paramount of potentially violating anti-bribery laws with the settlement – an allegation that Colbert himself recently echoed.
'While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his '60 Minutes' lawsuit,' Colbert said last Monday after returning from a multi-week break.
'As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don't know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I'd say $16 million would help,' he joked, adding that the 'technical name in legal circles' for the Trump payment is 'a big, fat bribe.'
Saying this past weekend that 'late-night shows mean a lot to me,' Oliver noted that he grew up watching The Late Show when it was hosted by David Letterman, who retired in 2015 and handed the reins over to Colbert.
'So to have gotten to be on Letterman's show and on Stephen's show is always one of the most fun things,' he added.
Concluding that it's 'very, very sad news' to see the show end, Oliver nonetheless said he's 'looking forward to seeing what [Colbert's] going to do next because that man will not stop.'
The Late Show may not be the only casualty of the pending Paramount-Skydance merger. Comedy Central's The Daily Show, a Paramount-owned property also known for its intense mockery and criticism of Trump, is also rumored to be endangered. (Notably, both Oliver and Colbert got their starts as Daily Show correspondents.)
'What better gift could [the Ellisons] give Trump than to get rid of Colbert and [Jon] Stewart?' one media insider told Status News founder Oliver Darcy this month.
Stewart, who, like Colbert, has openly railed against his corporate bosses for settling with Trump, said on his podcast last week that 'unfortunately' he has yet to speak with the Ellisons or any other Skydance executives about the status of The Daily Show.
'They may sell the whole f******* place for parts. I just don't know. We'll deal with it when we do,' he noted, adding: 'But let me tell you something, I've been kicked out of sh*ttier establishments than that. We'll land on our feet. I honestly don't know.'
Staffers at The Daily Show who have spoken with The Independent have also stated that they are currently in the dark about what will happen to the program, adding that they are highly concerned they could be canceled as well.
Other late-night comedians have also weighed in on the end of Colbert's run. ABC star Jimmy Kimmel, for instance, wrote on Instagram: 'Love you Stephen. F*** you and all your Sheldons CBS.'
Whether this was truly just a 'financial decision' on Paramount's part or an effort to appease the president, Trump made it clear that he was ecstatic about the news of Colbert's departure regardless.
'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,' Trump gloated on Friday. 'His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.'
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