CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter melted down during a Thursday evening appearance on the network over the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show.
CBS announced Thursday that Colbert’s show would end in May 2026, citing a lack of profitability and adding that the show itself would be retired at that time. Stelter raised questions about the timing, noting Colbert was a critic of President Donald Trump.
“Colbert is such an outspoken Trump critic. He’s just back from vacation and as he showed there on Monday on his first night back from vacation, he’s also a thorn in his parent company’s side,” Stelter told CNN host Anderson Cooper. “So this looks to a lot of Colbert’s fans like another form of capitulation by CBS to the president of the United States. If you look at Colbert’s Instagram page already, his fans are pouring their hearts out and blaming CBS for this.”
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“Here’s the reporting that I have just in the past few minutes, Anderson, about this financial explanation. Think back to 2023, when ‘The Late, Late Show with James Corden’ went off the air. I reported at the time that that show had become unprofitable, that CBS was not able to sell enough ads to make that show profitable,” Stelter said. “Well, that is now the case for Colbert as well. I’m told by a source close to the network that ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ is now technically unprofitable. So that does give the company a financial reason to end the show starting in May 2026.”
Stelter hinted that Colbert may not have been given a chance to save the show, citing Paramount’s pending merger with Skydance.
“However, it’s not as if Colbert was given a chance to take a pay cut or maybe change the format of the show, or move out of the Ed Sullivan theater,” Stelter continued. “This seems to have happened all at once and it comes on the verge on the on the verge of that big Paramount-Skydance merger. Who’s taking over Skydance? Larry Ellison, a friend of President Trump and his son, David. So there may be a lot more to this story. It’s just happened in the past hour, but there’s a lot more reporting to do on this.”
CBS settled a $10 billion lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump over the editing of an October 2024 interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, who was Trump’s opponent in the 2024 presidential election, drawing criticism from inside the company.
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