The declining ad dollars made Colbert's Late Show demise inevitable
While you were out having what I assume was an amazing weekend, probably out on some big picnic, cooking burgers, making out on blankets, etc, I was spending my time reading articles and listening to podcasts trying to get to the truth about the Colbert Late Show cancellation.
My overall takeaway continues to be that the investment vs the reward of US late night shows hasn’t really made sense for a few years now and Colbert was just the first to go based on his contract being up next year. CBS, more than the other networks, has been on a late night retreat for a few years (dumping Corden, then replacing it with the cheaper After Midnight, then dumping that too).
The political element of it all just made it easier to pull the trigger. Were promises made? I don’t know, but I think we would have seen this happen anyway.
“But Colbert was number one on broadcast!” Okay, Oliver Darcy. A shrinking pie is still a shrinking pie. I don’t really understand how we get from “the late night shows are all in trouble” a few weeks ago to suddenly refusing to accept the idea that a network might make a move this week. Are politics involved? Almost certainly, but were they the core motivation?
I am sure I have made reference to this graph before, but this is from a 2023 Axios article showing the ad revenue declines for US late night shows.
Note the over 50% drop between 2015-2021. And that’s 2021. How far has it fallen since then? Actually, I have the answer.
As per Brian Stelter at CNN over the weekend, citing numbers from ad data firm Guideline: “the networks’ late-night shows earned $439 million in ad revenue in 2018 and only $220 million in 2024 — a decline of 50 percent.”
That’s a bit off from the graph above (painting a gloomier picture from what was already a gloomy graph).
If incoming CEO (the deal isn’t signed yet, but it’s coming) David Ellison and co are pushing for CBS to exit out of business with Colbert, it’s worth keeping in mind as well that Ellison, the son of tech mogul Larry Ellison, is believed to have the tech platforms as a key focus of the newly constituted Skydance-Paramount (a name for the new company hasn’t yet been announced). It makes sense that they will seek to exit out of costly shows with limited repeatability.
On Friday we had Netflix advising the market that they have no broadcast network M&A ambition, which I’d attribute to the above reason - it wants a longterm library investment.
Which leads to the question on what the future is for topical comedy if broadcast TV is squeezing it out? And the obvious answer is YouTube.
The June Gauge report for the US market was released by Nielsen last week.
Compare the figures to June 2024, and broadcast TV is taking a 2% YoY shave.
YouTube’s share of Streaming has a YoY bump of 2.9%. Viewership is heading there and, I’d suggest (with pure gut feeling) that a good chunk of viewers are using it for timely video content. If anyone’s looking to figure out what the next step is in the career of Stephen Colbert, I’d be looking in that direction.
Further reading:
Jason Zinoman at the NYT says the next gig for Stephen Colbert will be more interesting as Colbert “wasn’t always the perfect showcase for his myriad talents.”
THR runs through some options for Colbert’s next job.
Fans are calling for the return of Craig Ferguson, completely missing the economics factor in all of this.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has never won an Emmy. The cancellation may change that.
News Desk
CBS show Tracker has slimmed down its cast with the season 3 departure of regulars Eric Graise and Abby McEnany. Read: Deadline
Mehcad Brooks is leaving Law & Order after a three-season run. A shame as I really liked that guy on the show. Read: Deadline
The trailer for your and my favourite film of 2025, Avatar: Fire and Ash, has been leaked online. It is expected to be released officially (in decent video quality) on prints for the new Fantastic Four film. Read: Dark Horizons
Blue Bloods star Bridget Moynahan will appear in Boston Blue, the spin-off, but so far only in the first episode. Read: Variety
A US judge has just dismissed a class action lawsuit against Amazon’s Prime Video that alleged its addition of ads to the service’s video content last year constituted an illegal stealth price increase. Read: The AV Club
That’s the newsletter for today.
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I pretty much agree. I don’t think any of those chat shows get much social media traction/discourse anymore.
Do I want “branded content” like Hot Wings to be the way forward for chat content? Personally no, but that gets attention and conversation in ways the broadcast chat shows haven’t for years.
If this isn’t the tipping point for the broadcast nets to realise they need to prioritise streaming and social media video, I hate to imagine what will be. When one of the long running reality shows gets axed? When the demographic for daytime soaps has completely aged out and died?
Anyway, I hope this frees up Colbert to do something more interesting.