"Ultimately, Colbert’s departure is no loss for American culture. To borrow an expression from sports, this is a case of addition by subtraction. The nation needs unifying voices more than it needs more polarization in comedy shows."
"Picture two multimillionaires, supposedly grown men, blurting out vulgarities and throwing somebody else’s furniture off the top of a building in a major city. This might be cause for intervention from the police or perhaps counseling services. Instead, this was part of a going-away stunt by ousted CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, along with his predecessor, David Letterman.
"Colbert used to be a successful comic, but over time his attitude, ratings and career all spiraled downward, largely because of his political anger.
"Colbert’s run on CBS ended on May 21. He spent much of his waning airtime berating his employer, congratulating himself and bringing on high-profile guests to flatter him. Those guests included former President Barack Obama and comedy hosts from rival networks, who spent much of their time psychoanalyzing their preferred target: President Donald Trump.
"CBS announced last summer that Colbert’s show was getting canned. CBS attributed the cancellation to a financial decision. Various media outlets reported that Colbert’s show was very expensive to produce and losing upwards of $40 million per year. The host raked in a reported salary of $15 million annually. The cost-cutting was plausibly linked to CBS’ parent company Paramount’s merger with Skydance Media. It’s also worth noting that CBS’ Colbert cancellation came just days after he gave a blistering on-air critique of his network’s decision to settle a lawsuit with Trump that stemmed from reporting by “60 Minutes.” . . . More...
UPDATE: David Letterman Sowed the Seeds of Late-Night Television's Demise
. . . What those on the left aren't talking about is the [Colbert] program's bloated production costs and the fact that Colbert made a conscious decision to tell half of the country to go you-know-what ourselves. Well, nobody on the left had been discussing the latter. Earlier this week, Variety — Hollywood's news organization of record — had a dimly lit lightbulb moment:" . . .
. . . "Near the end of his run on The Late Show, Letterman wandered more and more into partisan grumpy old man stuff. Nobody on our side of the aisle ever thought he was conservative, but he also wasn't making it a point to offend us. That changed in the last couple of years before he left late-night television. He began giving the implied finger to half of his potential audience. Conservatives on social media were a combination of disappointed and angry because so many of us had been fans of his work up until then.
"I can't help but believe that Letterman's embrace of leftist partisan vitriol emboldened Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel when they made the choice to be emotional political advocates rather than humorous talk show hosts. Kimmel's weepy breakdown after President Trump was elected again in 2024 remains perhaps the most pathetic spectacle in the history of late-night TV." . . .
I remember Letterman's line, "Republicans; we got nothin'."
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