Late night host Stephen Colbert announced on 17 July during a live broadcast, thatCBS “The Late Show” will be canceling,
Collbert was in a hurry to cast the move as political, long -time friend John Stewart was going ahead on “The Daily Show”, painting Colbert as a victim of Trumpian machine – completed with a gospel song“Go F — yourself”Target on CBS officials.
It was designed for a pleasant theater, but clearly lacked counter arguments. Between Blaster, neither Stewart nor Colbert offered a serious defense of the show’s underlying trade performance.
It should be said with clarity: “The Late Show” did not fall mainly from politics. This was the casualties of the audience’s migration – away from the inheritance television and towards streaming, social media and podcast.
The “The Late Show” was not only canceled – it was euthanized.
Colbert built the “The Late Show” around the political comedy, an extension of his comedy central personality, lies in partisan satire. It worked in the linear TV era, especially during Trump Presidency. But it is ill for the digital economy where the material survives or dies of stunning and again.
Jimmy Follen’s “Tonite Show”, shaped by live routes on Saturday night, mixes sketch comedy, musical improvements and celebrity games. This format is not completely political – it often has soft political touch – but it is designed for viral clips that can thrive on Tikok, YouTube and Instagram for years after a long time of original broadcast.
Falon is hot76.3 million social followers– Over 20.7 million of Colbert three times – and Drew9.2 billion social viewsFrom June 2024 to May 2025.
Pew research75 percent of tickets with more than 1 million followers show the creators that they focus on entertainment, while only 6 percent make political materials. Political monopoly decays quickly. Sketches, musical bits, and celebrity impressions apply long-taste values, run both cultural currency and older revenue.
Colbert may have staged a picket in the TV rating, but Follen wins where it now matters: digital relevance and mudright.
Even acclaimed shows should earn money. Loved to run “The Late Show”CBS a tentpole blockbuster fundingEvery year, returns without box office only. CBS interiors estimate the showLoss of $ 40 to 50 million annually for yearsProduction cost,With an employee of about 200Arrived to $ 100 million per year. Revenue never came –Advertisement sales fell 25 percentAbout $ 70 million by 2024, and streaming added$ 60 million in four years,
Megan Kelly recently notedThat his Fox News Primatime Show, “The Kelly File,” produced $ 100 million in revenue with more than 12 employees at a cost of one-tenth Kolbert. “Gutfeld!” ,Late night current rating king) It is reportedly operatedSimilar lean matrix,
Like Colbert, Fox Show of Greg Gutfeld lacks a variety of phosive appeal of Follen, but unlike Colbert, he is not a massive budget for a large-scale budget and provides a consistent wider operating margin.
Paramount phrase “Challenging Revenue Environment”The boardroom code for this truth was: “The Late Show” was structurally ornateless and had been over the years. The cancellation was not political. It was a financial imperative.
It is also important to understand that ratings are not enough in itself. In the announcement of his on-air cancellation,Colbert cited his Nielsen rating lead –2.4 million vs. Follen 2.1 million in the second quarter of 2025– As a proof of their unfair cancellation. But rating does not pay bills.
Advertisers purchase milestone, it is found rapidly online. Follen’s widespread appeal in digital platforms attracted Despite its small television audience, more advertiser dollarsA narrow victory in a shrinking broadcasting demographic is meaningless when the advertisement dollar flows elsewhere.
Colbert led the wrong scoreboard, and CBS officials knew this.
Late night TV also cannibalize itself. CBS, NBC, and ABC chase the same progressive-shock audienceAccording to Pew Research,To divide the already shrinking base in three ways. “The Late Show” never owned its audience, it shared it.
“Gutfeld!” That is not a problem. Only as a mainstream correct comedy show, it was almost attracted3.3 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025Regularly beating Colbert. It operates on oneRemote lean budget And possibly only a continuous late night show.
Colbert’s biased guest list –176 left-blow guests vs. a Republican since 2022 – left no place for development beyond her base.
Cable news offers the same lesson: ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNNCarcin the progressive pieWhile Fox consolves the right and often wins the ratings at night. Fundament kills margin. Fox dominates because it owns an unseeded lane.
All these business failures – weak material strategy, chronic loss, hollow ratings, and fragmented audiences – sit on top of a deep reality: Colbert’s cancellation was less about politics about migration. A tectonic shift is happening in how audiences consume comedy, and it has left the late night format stuck in a dying medium.
Cord-coting increased after the 2008 financial crisis, and a new generation is being raised on iPhones and streaming apps, never subscribed to TV in the first place.Pew research data shows that by 2015American television membership was already at its peak and then began a standing, irreversible decline.
The audience published for streaming platforms, podcasts and on-demand comedy specials, where authenticity and autonomy changed the old night broadcast rituals. Today, late night diversity comedy TV hosts are experiencing the whiplash of that unpublished 10-year-old migration.
Against this background, the format of the variety of big bats, five-night-one-week is a heritage product-a typewriter in a PC world.
Poking the Orange bear may have accelerated Kolbert’s death, but it was only a major indicator of great truth: the industrial model that maintains late night television, is collapsing, and there is no amount of political framing by Kolbert, Stewart or someone else.
Late Cambridge Physicist Stephen HawkingFamous line Is he “the ability to adapt to changing intelligence.” Collbert and his team showed that adaptive intelligence in front of the scenario of the spectators to grow rapidly.
Stephen Lil University of Cambridge Judge Business School has a strategy and innovation fello. He is the co -writer of the upcoming book “Organized Science Daniel” (Oxford University Press “, which discusses the role of news media in misinformation and disintegration.
