Paramount is a pimp. It never could have outfought James Dixon. But I didn’t know until tonight that it was Skydance all along.
Oops, sorry, wrong Godfather quote.
In the immediate aftermath of the announcement that Paramount would end The Late Show at the end of Stephen Colbert’s contract, the Left leapt to the conclusion that Trump made it a condition of his settlement. Colbert himself labors under the impression that he is some kind of political martyr. According to Colbert and his TDS-afflicted minions, Trump forced Paramount to fire him because, er … Colbert was such a cultural force that Trump feared what Colbert might say from his perch at the Ed Sullivan Theater?
Um … how did that work out in the election? Just sayin’. Paramount seemed fine with all the pimping for Kamala Harris before November at that theater, and it certainly didn’t seem to bother Trump either.
Anyway. Colbert has gotten plenty of support for this theory, and it seems he’s planning to feature this as a common thread for the next ten months that Paramount and Skydance allowed him to remain on the air. Last night, Sandra Oh joined the circus:
Actress and Kamala Harris supporter Sandra Oh went on Stephen Colbert’s show to whine about it being cancelled.
Democrats are losing their propaganda machine piece by piece.
That’s good because the policies they promoted were awful.
May all Democrat shills be cancelled. pic.twitter.com/ImcHXYj949
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) July 23, 2025
“Free speech” that depends on investors losing $40 million a season is always going to be “endangered,” Ms. Oh. Colbert can speak anywhere he wants, as long as he’s funding it himself. No one is entitled to a network platform, especially when that one has lost half of its advertising revenue and won’t restructure the costs to deal with it. Free speech is just that — it’s free. Salaries cost money, and employers don’t have a constitutional requirement to lose money over an employee’s speech.
For what appears to be the real story, let’s go to last night’s report from The Ankler, via Twitchy. According to Lesley Goldberg’s sources, CBS and Paramount had already decided to pull the plug on The Late Show before reaching the settlement with Trump. In fact, they had already communicated that decision to Colbert’s agent, James Dixon. For some reason, however, Dixon didn’t inform Colbert of the eventual cancellation until he returned from vacation, after the Trump settlement became public knowledge:
On June 27, just a few days before Paramount would announce its $16 million 60 Minutes settlement with President Trump, James Dixon received a call from CBS executives informing the prominent talent manager that the network was walking away from his client Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show. Dixon knew the news more than two weeks before his client, I’ve learned.
The franchise, which started in 1993 with David Letterman behind the desk, will soon go the way of other late-night offerings including CBS’ own After Midnight and The Late Late Show With James Corden as well as NBC’s Last Call With Carson Daly and its replacement, A Little Late With Lilly Singh. The genre’s footprint continues shrink amid a depressed ad market that saw the losses on Colbert’s show, which is No. 1 in late night with an average of 2.4 million viewers, grow to around $40 million last year. (Late Show costs $100 million annually to produce, per a source.)
Colbert, though, would not learn the news of his show’s demise until he returned from vacation. It was after Colbert taped the Wednesday, July 16 episode, I’m told, that Dixon informed him of CBS’ decision. The following day, Colbert stunned the TV industry and announced the cancellation at the top of the show.
In other words …
That’s the scene! When you lose $40 million a year in your business, don’t expect that business to continue, especially when it’s not your business. If Colbert wants to lose $40 million a year of his own money, then that would be his business. CBS, Paramount, and Skydance should get some gratitude that they allowed these losses to continue for the past three years, according to the New York Times, and that they are absorbing losses for the next ten months to give Colbert a chance at a dignified exit.
The question now is whether Colbert is even capable of a dignified exit. He certainly isn’t capable of being funny any longer, as Nate Silver pointed out and as John discussed last night at length. The next ten months look like a bleak immersion into self-proclaimed martyrdom and a $100 million investment into brand derogation at the hands of Colbert and the guests he’s booking. Just how long will it take before Paramount and Skydance make the obvious business decision to shut down The Late Show now, rather than try to give Colbert the personal consideration of the long off-ramp they planned?
Addendum: This is indeed food for thought:
I think this, from the Prospect, is missing from a lot of Colbert coverage. pic.twitter.com/0ZmGcUQs1y
— Olivier Knox (@OKnox) July 23, 2025
I don’t see the networks canceling a slew of other programs, but this is something to keep in mind about the disruptions taking place in the overall industry. The late-night genre has its own specific issues in that stand-up comedy and celebrity fixes can be much more easily gleaned from YouTube and social media than scripted dramas and scripted sit-coms. That, plus the curation of this genre’s audience down to rabid progressive activists, makes late-night the dodo bird of television. And again, it’s strictly business, Sonny.
