CBS Cites Costs in Colbert Cancellation—The Timing Tells a Different Story

Get stories like this in your inbox: Sign up for LateNighter’s free daily newsletter.

It’s a television truism for the ages: the most-watched network television show in any time period is never canceled for financial reasons. So much for that.

Thursday night, CBS claimed financial reasons for the shocking announcement that it was canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, its more-than-three-decade-old late-night franchise—started by the legendary David Letterman and continued by the multiple Emmy Award-winning Colbert—because of the “challenging” circumstances of late night for network television.

The circumstances have indeed been challenging financially across network television—and all of so-called linear television. But dropping a much-watched show, with a host who is the signature star of the network, is, at a minimum, unexpected. At a maximum, it reeks of capitulation to bullying from the President of the United States.

CBS executives stressed Thursday that the decision had nothing to do with the obviously suspicious timing: The network’s parent, Paramount, is about to close its sale to a Trump ally, Skydance Media. In advance of approval of the deal, CBS had already settled a bogus Trump lawsuit against its flagship news program, 60 Minutes, paying $16 million.

Trump has a long-standing animus toward Colbert. Last September, he called him “a complete and total loser,” “not funny,” and “VERY BORING.” He literally called for CBS to “terminate his contract.”

He also has a history of threatening the licenses of broadcast networks with late-night hosts who make fun of him.

That didn’t faze Colbert, who has shown no signs of tempering his nightly puncturing of Trump. He returned from vacation this past Monday and labeled the CBS deal to pay Trump off instead of fighting the 60 Minutes suit “a big fat bribe.”

For all those reasons, it’s hard to accept the stated reasoning behind today’s announcement at face value. And CBS executives are completely aware that they will likely be placed on the same pusillanimous scale as Republicans in Congress in terms of caving to Trump’s pressure.

The CBS argument is that advertising has dried up in late night, and it’s hard to dispute that it has diminished substantially. At the start of the 2024–25 season, NBC reacted to the economic pressure by dropping one night of The Tonight Show and cutting the band on its 12:35 a.m. entry, Late Night.

But CBS did not try any of those cost-saving moves—or any cost-saving moves at all. It simply cut off the franchise at the neck. It seems especially abrupt considering that CBS earlier this year had quietly renewed its 12:35 a.m. show After Midnight—and only reversed course (execs insist) when Taylor Tomlinson quit the show. All of which is to say that as of just a few months ago, every indication was that CBS intended to maintain its two-hour late-night block into the foreseeable future.

Something happened to change that. Did the cost situation become completely untenable? Or was it Colbert’s Trump-centric comedy that become completely unacceptable?

If it’s the latter, it’s a dark moment not just for late night but for all of television. One of the signature achievements of America’s separation from rule by kings has been the freedom to mock its leaders without fear of reprisal.

The move is most reminiscent of a previous example of CBS caving to pressure when the network forced the cancellation of the very successful Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour under pressure from the Johnson administration because of anti-Vietnam sketches. At that time, CBS blamed some contrived contractual violation (and eventually lost a lawsuit over the cancellation).

Presidents have been skewered in late night since the genre began 70 years ago. They’ve been skewered by editorial cartoons since the beginning of the Republic. Enduring barbs is supposed to come with the job.

Trump has resisted that part of the job description. He has been unrestrained in his attacks on the current crop of late-night hosts, calling them unfunny, weak, pathetic, dumb, and losers.

That’s fair commentary. Threatening to pull the license from a network if it won’t fire a late-night host is well past that.

In the wake of CBS bending the knee to Trump in the 60 Minutes suit, both Colbert and Jon Stewart were referenced as being vulnerable because their shows were owned by Paramount. That made them pieces of leverage for Trump to potentially use in either OK-ing or blocking the sale to Skydance Media.

The CBS announcement acknowledged the inevitable inference that it was genuflecting again with Colbert by saying the decision had nothing to do with “matters at Paramount.”

Colbert himself made no reference to the back-room smoke circling the decision in his comments on the air Thursday night. He did say he shared the audience’s feeling when they howled with outrage as he announced the coming end of his run.

But he graciously thanked CBS for being “great partners” and for being able to perform in the “beautiful Ed Sullivan Theatre.”

He will have plenty of time to say more, with the show’s expiration date not until next May.

That happens to coincide with the end of his current contract. CBS will at least get another year of performance out of him for its money. If they shuttered the show immediately, they would have had to pay him anyway. That’s a financial decision, too.

The end date will mean Colbert will have an opportunity to speak his comic mind about Trump for another 10 months, and presumably he will go out swinging—perhaps along the lines of Conan O’Brien’s memorably tempestuous exit from NBC in 2010.

After that, he’s likely to get offers elsewhere, perhaps somewhere not as vulnerable to bullying.

But the loss to late night—and television in general—will be painful. Every voice muted is a loss, especially if the muting comes under orders from the top.

Get stories like this in your inbox: Sign up for LateNighter’s free daily newsletter.