In his first public remarks since canceling The Late Show , outgoing CBS President and CEO George Cheeks shed some additional light on what he says led to the decision—and the less-than-ideal timing of its announcement.
Cheeks, who will now serve as Chair of TV Media at the newly structured Paramount, took reporters questions today at a press conference marking the closing of the company’s merger with Skydance.
Though CBS has maintained from the start that Colbert’s cancelation was a “purely financial” decision, many have questioned the timing of the announcement, which was made in the wake of Paramount’s $16 million 60 Minutes settlement with Donald Trump and just days before the company finally won FCC approval for its merger.
With Stephen Colbert‘s talent deal not set to expire til May, why make the announcement now?
According to Cheeks, the network had already decided the show was no longer financially sustainable, and knew it would be ending the show in the spring. As for the timing of the announcement, he said the show’s contracts with its writers and producers—which are renewed over the summer for the coming season, ending in August—forced the network’s hand.
“In order to do those deals, we were going to have to change the terms from what they traditionally are—September to August—to September to May,” said Cheeks.
“It was incumbent upon me and us to make it clear to Stephen and his reps that this is where we were,” he added.
Cheeks went on to reiterate the “significant secular decline” of the advertising marketplace, noting that the network decided it “couldn’t stay in that daypart”after Taylor Tomlinson opted not to re-up her contract for another season of After Midnight.
“We are huge fans of Colbert. We love the show,” Cheeks said. “Unfortunately the economics made it a challenge for us to keep going.”
So it’s Taylor Tomlinson’s fault? That… doesn’t really make much sense. Is he saying that because they only had one show to sell it dented overall profitability for the daypart? Surely they could have replaced her if having After Midnight was so key to programming the daypart.
And since I’m up here on this detergent container… is Cheeks saying they’ll just program nothing at all after late local news? Give the time back to affiliates for syndicated reruns? Because if they plan to continue to program the timeslot with… who knows what… the affiliates surely will be there with torches for the ratings and revenue declines their already battered late news will take.
Yeah, that’s a really weird take Cheeks has on all of this. If After Midnight was really THAT important to them, that when she decided to leave the network, CBS decides to also kill off.the only other programming that they have in that timeslot, couldn’t they just have tried some cost saving measures for EITHER of the programs? If you ask me, I would’ve honestly gone full circle at 12:37am and brought back the Tom Snyder era of the Late Late show, that’s how you save CBS Late Night.
As for what they’ll air after The Late Show ends in May of next year? Eh, they’ll probably just put on another episode of Comics Unleashed. That’s what they’re planning on doing with the 12:37am timeslot, so I guess it’s fair to assume that they’ll do the same for 11:35 indefinitely, unless late night becomes profitable again.
If all they’re going to air in the 11:35pm slot is an hour or two of Comics Unleashed, then I hope affiliates preempt or delay it for either extended late news or syndicated programming.
Local affiliates will miss about half the ad revenue. They were being paid to air content they had no costs to produce.
Some form of local news or low-cost sports recap shows.
CBS Early Morning will suffer.
I cannot see a television network EVER deficit financing one of their own “successful” shows. CBS probably had talks with Stephen about changing the direction of the show but he balked.
That is what I love about him he tells the truth about trump and Trump can take someone job
George Cheeks seems “cheeky” to me. I would keep anyone that trained under Les Moonves. Sadly, when Leslie departed, CBS lost its visionary leader. Shari Redstone’s biggest mistake was pushing Les out and having CBS rejoin Viacom.
Unfortunately Wessel words don’t cut it
Political elite will bring an end to transparent broadcasting 👎🏻😕🇦🇺
Horseshit
I look forward to watching Stephen every night. I . Love his show and I get to laugh For just a bit everyday. my husband has dementia and watching Stephen is awesome please don’t cancel the show because of trump.i hope Hulu or anyone picks him up cause that is where I will go!!!