nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com

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.

  • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
    171·
    3 months ago

    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.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
        6·
        3 months ago

        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

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
            4·
            3 months ago

            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.

      • Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        3 months ago

        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.