CBS Is Handing Late Night to Byron Allen—But What About the Affiliates?

One month from now, CBS will close up shop in late night, having decided to sell off the hour after the late local news on its affiliated stations to a program known for running episodes more than a decade old—in place of original episodes of Stephen Colbert.

And how much say did the network’s affiliates have in this consequential decision?

By all accounts, none.

For three decades those stations have had The Late Show, a classy, award-winning hour starring two consecutive, much-celebrated, eventually legendary hosts.

Come May 22, they will have Comics Unleashed, a comedy panel talk show starring Byron Allen, the veteran comic who is now much more a businessman: he stepped up, wrote a check, and bought the hour once occupied by David Letterman and Stephen Colbert.

CBS says the deal makes fiscal sense, and Allen seems pleased with the terms. As for CBS affiliates? That’s an open question.

So far, little has been heard about how they feel about the network’s decision to follow their newscasts with a new entry that bought its way onto their airtime. Local stations will still be able to sell ad spots during Allen’s show—but with Comics Unleashed likely to draw fewer viewers than The Late Show, those spots will be less valuable.

“I doubt any of those stations are excited. And some of them are going to ask questions.”

That’s an observation from one television executive with long experience dealing with affiliated station owners.

“The affiliates have no say; but at the same time, they are paying CBS money for programming. And usually a network does want to make them feel good about what they’re paying for.”

The stations do indeed pay networks “compensation fees” for programming. In CBS’s case, that includes late night—at least for the next month. After that, local news anchors at those stations will stop ending their newscasts with “Stay tuned for Stephen Colbert.”

Will they go along and offer the same bouncy promotional handoff to Comics Unleashed?

The executive has doubts. “It feels cringey.”

Colbert’s departure may induce some stations to ask to pay less in compensation fees and/or look for alternatives. Network contracts with affiliates generally allow for a limited number of preemptions—but that arrangement is for network programming. Late night won’t really be made up of CBS programming anymore.

“Stations might add time to their newscasts,” the executive suggested, citing the precedent of many local stations adding a 10–15 minute special sports segment on Sunday nights. “That’s more minutes where they can sell local ads.”

Money is, of course, at the heart of the coming upheaval in CBS’s late-night daypart. CBS has said The Late Show has been losing the network in the range of $40 million a year. Defenders of Colbert have disputed the figure. His competitor and friend, Jimmy Kimmel has termed those reported losses “beyond nonsensical,” citing those compensation fees as one revenue source he doesn’t believe CBS has counted in its calculations.

But more than one observer has questioned the premise of CBS abandoning an entire daypart over money without first attempting to address the show’s costs. Unlike Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers in NBC’s late-night lineup, Colbert never seemed pushed by the network for budget adjustments—things like a smaller staff, one fewer night per week (in Fallon’s case), or eliminating the band (in Meyers’ case).

Instead, the show was given notice last July that it was all over as of May.

Despite CBS’s denial, Colbert has been a particular irritant to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and the heavy hand of politics has seemed to leave a lot of fingerprints.

Brendan Carr, Trump’s ultra-faithful FCC commissioner, last month openly boasted of Trump “winning” his fight to rid the country of “fake news media,” lumping in Colbert’s cancellation with the defunding of PBS and NPR. It certainly sounded like he believes CBS caved to presidential pressure.

What CBS didn’t do, as the longtime network executive assessed it, was get creative with its late-night lineup (something no network has really done, to be fair).

After abandoning its 12:30 show, the network could have used the opportunity to bolster The Late Show.

“You could maybe extend your 11:30 show for 15 minutes—with a pre-taped segment or a music performance. Right there, you get 5 minutes of commercials.” But there is an even bigger alternative.

“Heck, Carson used to do 90 minutes,” the executive said. “You don’t have to do 90. Do 80 minutes.”

Twenty more minutes would add a sizeable chunk of additional revenue. The ad revenue over four nights a week could be considerable, and the limited extra costs are obvious: the host would be the same, the studio would be the same, the staff would be the same, the crew would be the same. A chunk more programming time for not very much additional cost.

As the executive noted, it’s not a new idea. It’s a really old one. It’s how late night started in 1954.

Another old idea would be to replace The Late Show with a straight interview show, like the ones Tom Snyder and Charlie Rose used to do.

CBS has said it is open to going back, as early as next year, to ordering an original network-owned program at 11:30—if the costs can be managed.

The talk show sounds potentially viable, though the executive was dubious about the math.

“You may have to invest $10 million to get it up and running. That, minus the $10 million or so you get from Byron—no finance executive is going to sign on to start off $20 million in the hole.”

There’s another loss attached to the demise of late night, the executive said—but one “nobody cares about”: the loss of prestige for CBS.

Giving up a daypart feels like a prelude to shrinking prime-time hours, and maybe the folding of CBS News into CNN under new Paramount ownership—all concessions that “you’re not really a network anymore,” the executive said.

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