- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
I’ll note that Colbert has the highest viewership (and therefore ad revenue) in his time slot. This is almost surely about the Ellison family, which now controls CBS, wanting to silence him.
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It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,
a purely financial decision.
Well, which is it?
Paramount is in the midst of closing a multibillion-dollar merger with the movie studio Skydance, a deal that requires approval from the Trump administration.
There it is…
The millions in bribe, erh I mean in a weak ass settlement, weren’t enough?
Got to kiss the ring, pay the king and shoot the jester too?
I can’t wait for the Lèse-Majestée laws to come next. /s
a purely financial decision
🤨 … riiiiiiiiight …
Remember: even in the most repressive autocracies, the leaders realised that jesters serve a purpose. Because if people can’t joke about how shitty things are at the present, they might see that as a sign that things are pretty bad, actually.
If the comedy is mucked with, that’s a sure sign that the politicians are getting a tad bit touchy.
They should just go crazy with Trump jokes now. If networks cancels the show earlier it will prove it was not for financial reasons. If it doesn’t they will have a great last season.
To be fair, I don’t know how much crazier they can go with Trump jokes than they were already…
I don’t get why you all are upset. The folks who are pointing out that the format is dying are correct, no matter how many down votes they get. I haven’t watched it in years, except for the occasional clip on the Internet, because I am an old man and can’t stay up that late.
But I think this might be mutual (or at least not as bad to Colbert as you all think.) They did Colbert a favor by simply letting his contract run out vs. finding a way to fire him:
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He can take the gloves off and really lean into the Trump bashing, because what are they gonna do, fire him early?
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He will have no problem finding something else to do. He might not even have to make a functioning business out of it, he has the money to go into semi-retirement and do some independent schtick. It’s a lot harder for the government to exert pressure on your boss to fire you if you don’t have one.
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They can both hype the final month/week/ episode. Remember that this show was originally Letterman’s baby, I am looking forward to him coming back once or twice and seeing the two of them skewer Trump (and CBS!) together. Those last episodes might send Trump’s ticker into the abyss. And CBS will make bank on it, all while technically being compliant to Trump’s conditions on that merger.
Colbert will continue to be outraged on camera, because that’s what his viewers want. And maybe he is pissed about being forced out. But I think he sees an opportunity here, and will take it.
It’s not about Colbert getting paid. That part is about the 200 people working for him.
And yeah, one should be outraged. He’s fired for political speech. That’s pretty damning for our country. Nobody is allowed to criticize dear leader.
Carson would like a word.
The point is, it is a fact that those late night shows are an anachronism. It is plausible that they would still be doing this even if Trump didn’t win, and wasn’t in a position to extort them. Heck, I think it would be more likely, because Colbert would have had less political material if our politics weren’t so bonkers.
It seems a plausible concern with Colbert, but doesn’t explain Conan or Corden.
So I think there’s some ambiguity here and some potential to look silly declaring this with absolute certainty and then Colbert ends up explaining he wanted to retire or move on to other projects while handing the show off to some other host, but the network decided not to bother with that show after the current host goes.
Meanwhile more unambiguously Trump has been restricting access to news media he doesn’t like and we can keep talking about that and other unambiguous things and even saying there’s a solid chance that appeasing Trump is to some extent causing this event, but certainty needs more information from authotive sources.
then Colbert ends up explaining
If he were gonna do that, it would have been yesterday when he made the announcement.
Colbert is rich, he’ll be alright. He’ll continue his comedy shtick in another format; there are enough media startups looking for content.
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Tell your friends
That doesn’t solve the demonetization problem that is facing almost all commercial left-of-center speech in the US. Unless people can make a living at it, there won’t be much of it.
He can. 10 million YouTube subscribers if comedy central or apple don’t pick it up. Linustechtips has a similar sub count and staffing
Similar staffing? 200 people work on Colbert’s show. I agree he can downsize and move to an online only model, but it will definitely negatively impact the quality of the show.
Weird right. Linus has labs and well over 100 employees now
explains the recent pump in my old BTC and ETH assets from 2021, lol.
I’m really confused how these things are related?
Has to be a reply to the wrong thread. There’s no earthly way those two things are connected.
Colbert getting cancelled is good for Bitcoin. /s
Somehow replied to wrong post, oops!
Well now I’m really curious what you were originally replying to, that could be affecting prices, haha
Shut up spammer
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Right, those things are true, but they still don’t explain this decision. It was the #1 talk show for what, 8 years? No sane network would just cancel it. They would revamp, cut costs. Every business would extract the value from the brand before tossing its lifeless corpse off the boat.
The most plausible explanation for this show being canceled at this moment is to appease Trump.
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Do you have more information on the trend of shoes getting canceled or not renewed?
Paramount is in the midst of closing a multibillion-dollar merger with the movie studio Skydance, a deal that requires approval from the Trump administration.
hmmmm….
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Trump can be part of the reason without being the entire reason, can’t he?
Also, Trump has made it clear in the past that he thinks it’s strange to do something for free, even if it’s a normal part of your job, like appointing somebody to an office. If the deal requires approval from Trump, then it’s completely on-brand for him to try to milk it for all it’s worth. And I am sure that he’s petty enough that he’d nix a deal for a personal squabble, as long as he wasn’t going to lose anything huge.
This doesn’t have the ring of a conspiracy theory. It’s literally all out in the open. It’s a prediction based on how Trump usually acts. Colbert might have been on the ropes and Trump’s team did the knockout blow. I guess we’ll know for sure if Trump did do it, because then he’d inevitably brag about it publicly. Or CBS maybe did this preemptively, expecting Trump to act like he always acts.
Bro watched Qatar gift Trump a $400m jet and host a $1.5m per plate dinner, then was like “corruption in order to appease Trump??? ReDdIt CoNsPiRaCy!!! I must reach for a much less plausible explanation!!!” 🤡
We both know this is the Ellison family killing a show to appease Trump, a show that they also don’t politically agree with, in order to complete the merger that Trump’s administration must approve. In this poltical climate, you’re just playing dumb.
I wasn’t planning to down vote until the shitty attitude in the last paragraph. Fuck you, too.
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You really don’t have to be so upset dude.
For what it’s worth I mostly agreed
Well yeah, some people cannot handle their opinions being challenged, but you are also guilty of insisting on a hardline that seems unlikely to be the only explanation. If media companies are looking to axe people, it makes perfect sense they would pick someone who is not growing while also deplatforming someone who speaks against their ideals. So Colbert lost almost 1/4 of viewership over 5 years, but how does that compare to Kimmel or Fallon viewership? Without a baseline for comparison, your statistics are just arbitrary. The Times even said that ad revenue is about half for all Late Night shows compared to 2018, but if there are also half as many shows, then the profit/loss should be similar.
Overall, I don’t believe anyone would cancel a show that still draws over 1mill viewers for “financial reasons”. Redo the budget, sure, but not cut the entire program.
Edit: well written and reasoned though. The comment was a good conversation contribution. It’s unfortunate downvotes always represent agree/disagree instead of productive/counterproductive.
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I wonder how many people are shifting to watching that content in clips instead of the whole show. The monologue, little bits, individual interviews. People may prefer to just watch the sort of clip and skip the rest, which is easier to do in YouTube instead of loading the episode up and seeking around.
If that were significant, it would suggest a different production approach, since there’s not much point in producing it in a continuous bit. Also the best person for a monologue may not be the best person to conduct an interview.
Of course it’s worth wondering why the most successful would be the next to fall, rather than the least. The other cancelled shows were generally the low performers. Maybe because it’s more expensive, or maybe because of appeasing Trump. The decline might have made it an easier decision, but they may have wanted to grease the wheels if the deal a bit
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Recap and redundant content, oh look a musical guest… but I can hear any of those and way more on demand. An interview with a celebrity, who if I cared I could watch a ton of elsewhere. Of course some interview better than others, and seeing a Jon Stewart interview is worthwhile, but not sure if I’m in the mood to watch a monologue at the same time I’m in the mood to watch an interview. Which is really the big thing about these shows is that it’s a long set of not really connected content that used to make sense with broadcast television but makes less and less sense with on-demand video dominating.
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That was some good rounding out of the data, thank you. I see better where you are coming from. Colbert being 15M per year is beyond crazy. I had no expectation of his salary being that high. Unless they were using him to pull more subscribers for other shows there is definitely no reason to have that salary on top of the production costs.
Lol, talk shows are cheap to make. Even small countries with small viewership can afford to out them in with miniscule viewership numbers.
Dramas are expensive. Talk shows, reality tv, panel shows, talking head shows. They are all cheap.
Sure, the viewership is dropping but its still multimillion. And they can just use the boys online for views too. The main drawz the celebrity guests, are free content as they are there to promote their latest project.
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Yep for hundreds of hours of tv, that is topical with consistent, if dropping viewership, that’s cheap. Very cheap.
Comedy pilots or dramas can be millions to make for one episode that is never even seen.
They own the theatre that the filming is in, so it doesn’t cost them anything, apart from opportunity cost.
How much do you think that works out for one show, costwise and what’s expansive to make and what’s cheap to make? How much as revenue do you think is made for a show with 2.4m viewers.
Owning and maintaining that much downtown real estate is pretty huge and opportunity cost can’t be ignored. The late night studio as a big NYC thing is a matter of expensive prestige for a medium that might not evoke the same responses it used too.
I do think it’s conspicuous that the biggest show would be the next to fall and do not doubt appeasing Trump was a likely factor in doing it now, but I would not be surprised to see the medium die out in the age of clip sized videos on YouTube.
Lol, owning that much real estate would have made huge gains over the time period. Not a loss at all. You’re clutching at straws.
It’s not conspicuous that the biggest show would fall. It’s lies about the reasons for the axe. The show is critical of trump and they want a merger approved. It’s fascism.
I have no doubt that the large late night show is destined to end and be in the annals of history. Same for cable tv. Same for news on tv. However, being terminal in viewership does not suffenly make it unprofitable before a merger, particyof it’s the biggest show, worth the most viewers and minimal costs.
Real estate gains don’t really matter much so long as the real estate is tied up in actually doing something. Yes they can recoup years of costs if they sold it, but in the meantime owning means a number of expenses.
I am also inclined to think that Trump may be a factor, but then I also saw his point that Colbert had a 3 year contract that is up next year, and that means the network is now having to make the call whether they want to be doing this in 2029, and if they aren’t sure that’s the right way to address the market moving forward for three years, that might explain reluctance. If they might want to invest in a clip-centric format perhaps with a younger host, then this would be the point to make that call.
Lol, all the assets related to a production are considered. You think Disney would have bought star wars just for the films?.the cost of upkeep is an issue when you bring it up, but the gains aren’t? Talk about moving goalposts!
They are ending the show. Of they were unsure, they could have renewed year by year. They have not announced a replacement format, so you’re making stuff up now.
The facts we know if is that Colbert has been critical of the administration and the merger. It’s the most popular show. it’s cheap to make and would be profitable.
It’s kowtowing to Trump for the sake of a financial arrangement. I hope it fails.
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Bro they’re downvotes, who gives a fuck? Lol
That being said I’m personally of the opinion its a little of column A, and a little of column B.
