CBS Canceling Colbert poses questions about late at night

There are two schools of thought about CBS's decision to finish “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

The first says that cancellation is a unique output of the historical time space, which Supreme He was trying to overcome the bureaucracy to finally merger with Skydance Media, an agreement that was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday after more than a year in Limbo.

The other says that he points out the beginning of the end of night television.

The entertainment industry will have a better idea where the truth is next year when Disney Decide the destination of Jimmy Kimmel's night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

While NBC recently extended the contracts of its two night hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, until 2028, Kimmel's contract will extend in 2026.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” has been a basic night element since 2003, acting not only as a typical interview program in the circuit, but as a valuable marketing center for the Disney theatrical and television content list. In addition to traditional interviews one by one, Kimmel will also frequently house several stars of the same project, often for Marvel, Star Wars and animated franchises of the company.

The clips of these chats feed on Kimmel's YouTube Channel, which has more than 20 million subscribers, and on social networks, helping to generate rumors for the next Disney projects.

As a comparison, Fallon Show account has about 32 million subscribers, while Colbert's is 10 million and meyers of just over 5 million.

Kimmel is also a frequent host of the Academy Awards, which is broadcast on the Disney ABC, and is currently the host of the ABC celebrities edition of “WHO wants to be a millionaire.” These auxiliary tasks, as well as their annual work that closes Disney's presentation for advertisers, can make Kimmel more important for the long -term future of Disney than Colbert for Paramount or CBS.

Even so, although the next proof of the media commitment with the night is months of rest, the end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is calling attention to the growing pressures on traditional television and asking questions about whether the schedule can survive the evolutionary visualization landscape.

The cost of producing night programs has increased as the media industry has overturned by transmission and change of consumption habits. The traditional payment TV package has lost millions of customers in recent years, and as they have disappeared, they have also done so advertising dollars.

The changing equation has forced the media companies to re -pay.

Large -scale, companies such as Comcast Nbcuniversal and Warner Bros discovery. They have chosen to divide their cable television networks into separate corporate entities.

At the programming level, the great shows are increasingly green for launch in transmission services instead of traditional networks. The wages of highly paid news presenters have moderated, with some away from traditional networks completely and starting their own companies. And much of the money spent in increasing linear TV networks and transmission services is intended for live sports.

That leaves family titles in Flux.

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” used about 200 people and recorded annual losses of around $ 40 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, who refused to be appointed talking about non -public matters. “Jimmy Kimmel Live” uses around 250 people and loses approximately the same amount, according to a familiar person with the finances of that program.

While the payment television package still resorts to most of the profits for inherited media companies, much of which derives from the rates that payment television distributors give to the networks that will be included in the package, that figure is in decline.

Revenue from linear television advertising have also been on a constant slope. Industry analysts and experts expected the advertising market to stabilize in 2025 after tumultuous years centered on transmission, but macroeconomic uncertainty has hindered recovery.

In quarterly gains that were reported in May, SupremeNbcuniversal and Disney reported each of the lowest ads sales year after year.

Paramount reported in May that his television advertising revenues of the first quarter fell 21% to $ 2.04 billion, mainly due to comparisons with the previous year in which the company had the Super Bowl. That championship calls the greatest number of advertising dollars of any live event on television. Without the Super Bowl, advertising income would have been flat, said the company. General income for the Paramount TV segment decreased by 13%.

From the traditional advertising spending of TV that remains, most often has grave live sports, which attracts the largest audience. Nbcuniversal recently promoted its record volume of advertisement sales during the most recent initial cycle due to an upcoming NBA list, the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympic Games and other sports.

Disney reported in May that quarterly revenues for their national linear networks decreased 3% to $ 2.2 billion, attributing the refusal to reducing advertising income. Even so, Disney pointed out that advertising income for ESPN and sports in general saw an increase in advertising income.

These winds against help legitimize Paramount's decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, but the moment of the end of the program has generated suspicions.

The announcement that Colbert's show would take his last reverence in May 2026 occurred a few days after the host Lieutenant publicly called Paramount for his $ 16 million agreement with President Donald Trump for the edition of an “60 minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Colbert described the settlement as a “big and fat bribe” during one of its monologues that are presented, referring to the pending fusion between Paramount and Skydance Media, which required the approval of the Trump administration to proceed.

Paramount and CBS executives issued a statement last week by saying that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against the challenging backdrop at night.”

“It is not related in any way to the performance, content or other issues of the program that occur in Paramount,” the company continued.

Although the grades for the Colbert program have decreased in the last decade, the program has constantly achieved the highest views of any show at 11:35 pm of the hour, surpassing “Jimmy Kimmel Live” of ABC and “The Tonight Show of NBC starring Jimmy Fallon”, according to Nielsen.

Even so, Colbert's classifications have been decreasing every season. For the most recent period of time from September to May, Colbert averaged approximately 1.9 million viewers, with most of the audience in the demographic age of more than 65 years, according to Nielsen, a revealing data point on the state of the television audience.

The Kimmel audience paints a similar image, with the audience falling from the period from September to May in 2019-2020 to the most recent in 2024-2025, when the average was almost 1.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

When Paramount listed its highly qualified television programs board during its latest profit report, including “Tracker”, the best qualified series and “Matlock”, the new best qualified series, also listed “The Late Show” by Colbert as the Late Night's show higher rating. “The Daily Show”, also from Paramount, was the best night program on cable television.

Some industry experts have questioned whether CBS could have explored other ways to save money, or save late at night, in addition to directly canceling “The Late Show”. NBC reduced the costs by eliminating the band in the night show of Meyers and changing Fallon four nights a week instead of five.

CBS tried to bring a younger demography at the time with “After Midnight”, a night show that extended after Colbert. The show was presented by Comedian Taylor Tomlinson and focused on viral internet phenomena.

Although CBS intended to renew the program after its first two seasons, Tomlinson decided not to extend his contract, and the program was canceled.

Disclosure: Comcast has NBCuniversal, the CNBC parent company.