Firing Colbert and canceling his show, days after he criticized Paramounts Payola to Trump. Thats the "financial decision"
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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I feel like he just replaced Letterman a year or two ago and now the show is already ending. Where the hell did all the time go? How am I nearly 40 already?
If it makes you feel better, this has nothing to do with normal Hollywood celebrity shuffling and contractual disputes, this is entirely targeted political censorship. Colbert is/was the highest rated talk show on network television and was just nominated for an emmy.
That doesn't really confort me much, given that I just realized that it has been TEN YEARS since Letterman left! I hate how quickly time started moving when COVID first hit. Time never slowed back down, it never slowed back down!
Every week has been a month, and every month has been a week.
Welcome to aging
I do feel the same. Somewhere around 2012 - 2015 life just stopped for me. I lost track of media and current hip topics and then life just spiraled into one long series of disasters, both personal and global and now I feel a thousand years old but can't detect any time that's passed. When I watch the news and current events, even though logically I know what's going on, some part of my brain screams that everything looks "wrong" and like we're in the wrong world.
Everybody is saying this is politically motivated and I don't really think I buy that. Not ruling out the possibility entirely, though. Anything is possible but the logic just doesn't work out to me.
First, CBS paid Trump. Trump didn't pay them. They already capitulated by paying him off. Why would they capitulate further by getting rid of the most popular late night program if it was profitable?
Second, if this was political why are they keeping the show on until May of next year? Wouldn't trump want them to cancel it sooner?
Third, they're canceling the late show entirely. If they were canceling it to get someone critical of trump out of there why wouldn't they just replace colbert with someone more favorable to him?
Fourth, these shows have had declining ratings for years now and the writing has been on the wall for a long time that these shows were not going to be able to hang around for forever in today's streaming climate. I think more cancelation announcements are likely.
As much as I hate trump and wouldn't put something like this past him I really don't think it's likely that this has anything to do with him. Doing this for money reasons is fully in line with how terrible capitalism is for art and I can absolutely believe that this was some dumbfuck accounting decision.
It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that Trump wanted the payout AND getting rid of Colbert as part of a bribe to allow the merger.
Keeping the show until May of next year may just be due to contracts that they have with Colbert and other employees of the show. This way they avoid any lawsuits, etc related to breach of contract.
Same with cancelling the show. It seems kind of like how instead of termination for no reason, companies "eliminate the position".
If the show had low ratings, I might agree, but it doesn't seem like that was the case. It's awfully suspicious given that we already know Paramount will bend over for Trump, it's hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.
CBS' parent company, Paramount, is in merger talks with Skydance. Mergers must be approved by the federal government. (I thought it was the FTC, but I see the FCC mentioned in articles about this ... don't want to dig into the weeds here. The feds must approve.)
This used to be done by a theoretically impartial board which would make decisions based on benefit to the public. Now there isn't even a pretense of caring about the public good. If Trump is happy with the tribute he receives, the merger will go through. If he's upset, it won't.
Yeah, CBS already folded and paid a huge fine as a "settlement" to a lawsuit they could almost certainly have won in court, but when you're trying to appease a mob boss you just have to keep paying.
It's true that putting the end date for Colbert a year out isn't as extreme an appeasement than just pulling him off the air, but there are many factors involved. The mob boss has declared that he is pleased with the outcome, so mission accomplished.
Also Skydance’s owner is a Trump ally
Whoever downvoted MeaanBeaan here, why? I suspect you just disagree; that's not a legitimate reason for a downvote. He bothered to offer his analysis, and at least to me it reads like a legit take on events, not trolling. If you disagree, say what you disagree with (like I did). If you're too lazy to do that, just skip it. Downvotes are for trolls.
Tldr. Downvoted.
Highest rating show. Financial decision.
Nah. All who oppose Trump will be silenced.
Kimmel next
Late show was also just nominated for an Emmy.
Kimmel and John Stewart are in fact being targeted next.
I predicted that this would happen if the country started an irreversible slide into fascist warlord dictatorship, I just thought it would be much further down the road.
Watch, in about a year all of these comedians and liberal pundits are going to be replaced by right-wing grifters and podcasters capturing the stupid, populist attention spans of people who just want to stare at flashing lights and listen to people screaming about how evil trans children are interrupted by ads for essential oils and testosterone supplements. This isn't an exaggeration, this is what we can expect.
Kimmel has already said this is his last season, voluntarily.
Daily Show is next. Maybe Seth Meyers.
Kimmel has already said this is his last season, voluntarily.
Remember that when Conan was forced out, he had specific gag orders about what he could say or not, so take the "voluntary" part with a few grains of salt until that potential gag order expires, if it ever does.
Really what's happening is fascist censorship of opposition voices and satire is a powerful tool in speaking truth to power, making comedians highly threatening to fascists. Corporations like Skydance don't care about civilization or a better world, they need line to go up, and the fastest, most efficient way to get that line up is to buy some fascists to run the country you're located in.
This was part of CBS' bribery payment, along with the $16 million to settle the 60 Minutes case, which would have been an easy win in court.
ABC and CBS have been compromised and have paid bribes. When will he go after NBC?
I know a country where he could work from.
He criticized the surpreme leader? Probably lucky to still be alive...
I loved the Tek Jannsen short cartoons he had on occaisonally
They were based off of William Shatner's TekWar series of books. My uncle gave me a few and I tried reading them. Just imagine Tek Jannsen, but without any of the humor.
Shepow-pow.
I hope he uses this to go off the rails going into the election summer
Criticized Trump. Had to go or the merger was not going to be approved by Trump's ass-suckers.
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