CBS is finally putting some official numbers behind its late-night pivot.
After ten months of defending its decision to end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as “purely financial,” the network went on the record Thursday with figures network execs had previously only circulated privately: CBS says The Late Show was losing “roughly $40 million” annually, while Byron Allen’s new time-buy deal for the 11:35 p.m. hour will generate $15 million in profit.
That, the company says, amounts to a $55 million swing in late night.
“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue. With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit—a $55 million swing.”
CBS Statement
That’s a tidy number—and, on the surface, a persuasive one that enables the network to wave away the news that Allen’s Comics Unleashed opened far below Colbert’s Late Show in the national ratings.
In effect, the network is saying don’t measure Comics Unleashed by the ratings, judge it by the balance sheet.
But the numbers being shared by the network raise a larger question: what exactly is being counted, what’s being left out, and how much can ratings really be separated from the economics of a commercial broadcast network?
CBS has not publicly broken down how it arrived at the $40 million annual loss figure for The Late Show. The network’s statement does not say whether that calculation includes only the direct cost of producing the show against national advertising revenue, or whether it accounts for other forms of value a No. 1 late-night franchise provided CBS and its affiliates.
That distinction is not academic. Network late night has never existed in a vacuum. The shows generate national ad sales, yes, but they also sit inside a broader broadcast ecosystem that includes affiliate fees, local advertising, tune-in for the late local news, and viewing habits that can carry into the next daypart.
If Comics Unleashed continues to draw a smaller audience than The Late Show, local stations will have less audience to sell around the hour. If CBS affiliates are being compensated in some other way for the change—perhaps in the form of a reduced affiliate fee—that too would play a part in the broader economics of the decision. And if viewers switch to NBC or ABC at 11:35, those habits could matter beyond the late-night hour itself.
The central question is not whether a time-buy model can make CBS’ 11:35 hour immediately more profitable. By CBS’ own accounting, it can. The question is whether the company’s $55 million swing captures the full cost and value of exiting the traditional late-night business.
There is a real argument that the traditional model no longer works. Late-night audiences have declined across the board, production costs remain high, and the online clips that drive cultural conversation are difficult for networks to monetize at the same scale as linear advertising.
But the ratings still matter, even if they matter differently. They matter to affiliates. They matter to advertisers. And losing viewers in one time period makes it that much harder to get them back in the next.
One veteran network executive compared CBS’ logic to NBC’s short-lived 10pm Jay Leno experiment, when the network argued that cheaper programming did not need to win the hour to make financial sense—only to see weaker rating ripple into affiliate newscasts and Conan O’Brien’s newly launched Tonight Show, and eventually force a messy reversal. While allowing that the stakes are much lower in this case, “this feels like the same kind of financial logic with blinders on,” the executive said.
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Separate but not unrelated: Several numbers have circulated for both Colbert’s Late Show finale and Byron Allen’s 11:35 p.m. Comics Unleashed debut, owing to discrepancies between initial panel-only Nielsen Live+Same Day ratings data and updated big data-plus-panel data. Nielsen has now released Live+3 ratings for both:
Colbert’s final Late Show grew to 9.1 million total viewers and 1.46 million viewers in the 18–49 demo, while the first half-hour of Allen’s Comics Unleashed averaged 1.17 million total viewers and 116,000 in the demo. Its second half-hour drew 698,000 total viewers and 64,000 in the demo. Across the full hour, Comics Unleashed averaged 935,000 total viewers and 90,000 demo viewers
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To me the greatest debate there is whether TV networks are viable as a business. We can debate about the costs of producing these late shows, on the other hand not having something to keep viewers (Even if those viewers are old) tuned in at late evening will only reenforce a death spiral.
And those shows can also be handy to help their studio to promote movies.
Cole Burt was a liability in a dying industry. Somehow baby boomers can’t comprehend basic economics.
This Zero thinks boomers are too stupid to run television! Yet an unstable loser, like that, with no life experiences and no knowledge, thinks it knows what’s best for everyone! Let’s all point and laugh at that thing!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You miserable old fruitcake. No wonder you’re all alone and you howl at the clouds.
Unlike you begging for Dreariest Daddy Drumpf to whip your ass for not being MAGA enough for you, Zero!
You’re a flaming fruit loop
Now you’re bizarre behavior makes sense.
My God, but you’re as unstable as you are stupid! Go back to school, and this time, put in the effort needed to graduate! You communicate like a fourth grader that needs its Ritalin!
What does it say about YOU for posting that thing you accuse Stephen Colbert of doing? Project much, you disgusting piglet?
It’s as if you didn’t read the article.
you’re the stupidest person to exist, perhaps ever
Kimmel is next lol
Stupid fruit
And you accuse others of leading disgusting lives, you hypocritical loser!
Doesn’t matter, I’ve already deleted all CBS and Paramount channels from my listing.
And Jon Stewart and the the rest of the morons at The Daily Show were expecting for you to keep Comedy Central, and now you won’t watch
Well there’s always YouTube and 2nd hand live streaming
Lil to no money for them 😝
And less money for Daily Show which will lead to cancellation, because they derive most of their money from cable bundle and ad revenue
Who begs for Dreariest Daddy Drumpf to cancel those shows and have them arrested for giving you a sad!
You’re such a pathetic hole, Mucky Boy!
Comics Unleashed is the Spirit Halloween of late night television programming.
That’s funny!!!!
Figures don’t lie, but liars fugure…
Best of luck with Comics Unleashed!
I prefer quality television, vs. this canned “product”
Who begged for Colbert to be arrested? Another one of your lies…lol
Because you’re a whiny assed loser that doesn’t like its life decisions mocked out in the open!
Care to show proof?
You can’t…another lie by you.
Who was the lame jackass that said I thought Colbert’s finale would get around 3million?
Oh wait, that was you…lol
I apologize for nothing! While you need to apologize for spreading lies and bullshit around here believing it to be the truth!
You and Zero are the biggest losers around here, Mucky Boy! Nobody likes either of you!
Nobody is asking you to apologize, failed partial abortion.
Let’s see where you lied so far so recently:
You lied about me saying Colbert’s finale would get around 3 million.
You lied about me saying Colbert should be arrested.
And now you lied about me wanting you to apologize.
Your three combined brain cells are overworked. Please go away and step into traffic lol
You called Letterman and Clinton sexual predators who attacked women against their will!
You accused Biden of being a pedohile, saying he assaulted his granddaughter!
You described Obama as a baboon, because you’re a racist fuckstick!
And you think you have the right to talk down to me?
Mucky Boy, you’re nothing but a projecting hypocritical loser that blames others for the trailer trash life you lead! That’s why nobody likes you! That’s why it is my right and privilege to give you the pimpslapping and curbstomping from Hell that you so fucking deserve! There’s no way that a soft stinking turd, like you, comes off a winner, Mucky Boy!