OPM, Late Night Edition

The big legacy media news this past week was the announcement by CBS that its #1 in its time slot "Late Show" with Stephen Colbert will cease to be next year. The blogosphere, fueled by Colbert himself, immediately speculated that this cancellation was politically motivated, as Viacom (which owns CBS) seeks to complete a merger with Skydance Media, and supposedly feared the Trump administration might kibosh the deal as political payback for the network's left-leaning ways.

While such speculations never die, because people cling to what they want to be true even in the absence of evidence and the plausibility of other explanations, this one withered pretty quickly. The suits quickly informed us that the show, despite holding high ratings (relatively speaking - who watches late night TV any more?), is a money pit to the tune of $40M per year in losses. Apparently, selling ads in that time slot is a tough business, and selling ads for Colbert's vitriolic show is even tougher.

All this passes my sniff test. While it remains a possibility that this move was preemptive cowardice on Viacom's part (and regular readers know I believe C-Suite types are cowards first) based on Paramount's recent $16M settlement of a lawsuit brought by Trump, it makes total sense that a show incurring eight figure annual losses and having no more up-side potential would be ended. Show business is business, after all, and money talks. Viewers willcontinue to trend away from broadcast television, and everybody knows this. AI reports that ad revenue for Colbert's show is down 40% since 2018, from $121M per annum seven years ago to $70M last year. That's not just a Colbert problem - all the late night shows combined garnered $439M in ad revenue in 2018 and just $220M last year.

A show that costs more than $100M a year to produce, with a host taking home $15M of that total, deep in the red and trending downward, on a withering medium. A grade schooler could figure this one out. No MBA required.

But, sure, let's believe it's all born of fear of political retribution rather than dollars and cents.

What the squawks boil down to, as always, is the attitude that "important" voices such as Colbert's should not be hostages to market forces. That they serve such an important "truth-to-power" role in our political sandbox that the multibillion dollar corporations should just eat whatever losses the shows incur. Of course, under the last administration, that "truth-to-power" was pure sycophancy and water-carrying for those in power, but that dissonance doesn't really bother the righteous demanders of Other People's Money (OPM).

This comes on the tail of the government cutting funding for National Public Radio, and the righteous accusations that this cut represented an assault on the First Amendment itself. A load of hogwash - free speech does not come with any entitlement to taxpayer's money. I have asked those accusers if the Second Amendment entitles me to taxpayer cash for my firearms purchases, and of course silence ensues.

The Left has long been champing at the bit for its version of Joe Rogan. Perhaps Colbert could give that a whirl and launch his own podcast. Invest some of the millions he's been paid, and see if he can win in the marketplace rather than relying on some deep-pocketed corporation to pay him out of the goodness of its shareholders hearts.

But, that would be capitalism. Something the Colberts of our world claim to hate.