- 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.
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
Do you have more information on the trend of shoes getting canceled or not renewed?
hmmmm….
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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.
deleted by creator
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.
Not if Colbert and probably a number of other people would have demanded a multi-year commitment if they were going to continue. For all we know Colbert was ready to hand things over to another host since he is in his 60s now, but the network didn’t want to bother. The replacement strategy was a hypothetical, they might instead invest in yet another drama or maybe a sitcom or something and not even try to fill the role that variety style shows historically filled and cede that to other media and independent streamers.
If they were so financially motivated that of course they should have wanted to keep the show running, they probably would have announced transitioning to a new host, perhaps behind the scenes insisting that they lay off the Trump coverage. Trump would have loved the narrative of personally getting Colbert out of the late night show that he himself used to be a part of a fair amount back in the 80s being interviewed by Letterman. Telling Trump they are “getting the woke out of the show” would probably make him even happier than just canning the entire show.
Trump might have been a factor in closing it out sooner, though if Colbert was of a mind to hand things over to a new host instead of going for another few years then that certainly would have been a plausible decision point too. It’s just hard to really know and it’s worth the caveat that any theory, Trump or otherwise, is speculative and might have a different level of accuracy than we can guess right now until the key people say more than has been said.
Removed by mod
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.