You see, there could certainly be a valid commercial argument for a major news network to try a regular entertainment show that was dedicated to attacking and undermining the President of the United States five nights a week, every week. If enough people watched it, and the show was popular, it would have a Machiavellian defense for its existence. Now I, as an ethicist, am confident that my position is superior, which is that corporations should not actively try to cause division, distrust and hate in their own country, which are all destructive to democracy and a civil, functioning society.
I particularly object to entertainment shows that are not merely political and partisan propaganda, but that overwhelmingly express only one point of view to the extreme extent that Americans holding the adverse points of view are treated as “the Other.” Beginning in 2016, TV’s late night and public issues comedy shows became all hate for the American President, all the time. Hate is not too strong a word. Hate is also not particularly funny.
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers, Bill Maher, John Oliver, John Stewart, Samantha Bee, Jimmy Fallon, Chelsea Handler and Saturday Night Live committed to reflex, unrestrained, attacks on Donald Trump while leaving the highly scatheable Democratic Party and its giant comedy targets like Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Tim Walz virtually unscathed.
The hilarious part is that these knee-jerks claimed to be speaking “truth to power” when in reality they were on;y interested in speaking their biased “truths” to the powers they didn’t want to acknowledge, while trying to inflict other power on Americans whether we wanted it or not.
To be fair to CBS and Colbert, the “Late Show” had already moved into left-wing propaganda under previous host David Letterman, who became bitter and largely unfunny in his latter years while relentlessly mocking President Bush. Comedy Central had racked up big ratings with the left-biased comedy of Jon Stewart, who successfully if unethically merged the influence of a news commentator with the skills of comedian. (In the past, the greats in that rarefied field, like Will Rogers and Mort Sahl, saw their jobs as calling pox on both sides of the ideological divide. Stewart broke that mold, and nobody has been able to repair it. Gee, thanks, Jon!)
Letterman had guests who were not Democrats or progressives (Bill O’Reilly comes to mind) if only to needle them. Not Colbert: he made his show a parade of the Democratic leadership and most irritating ideologues, with ne’re a dissenting voice to be heard. Senator Warren was on his show repeatedly. Amy Klobuchar. Kamala Harris. Hillary. He fawned over all of them. Colbert’s show is literally a “deplorables not welcome” zone, a fascinating choice in a field where success is determined by viewership. Eventually Colbert’s bias became boring even to progressives, who had other viewing options after 11:00pm, like, oh, everything. The show’s ratings, and many have pointed out, are a fraction of Letterman’s at his peak, and more to the point, the show loses money.
So, to summarize, Colbert’s ego trip lost money, divided the country, aimed at denigrating half of the nation, is repetitious, and wasn’t even being watched by that many people, since it required an unquenchable thirst for Trump-hate. Gee, what a surprise that CBS decided to end it.
Now the spin, in order to blame the planned demise of the show on Trump (naturally) is that Colbert’s “Late Show’s” cancellation is a First Amendment violation; you know, because Trump is Hitler. The theory is that Paramount, CBS’s new owners, were pressured by the Trump Administration to kill the show just as they pressured Paramount to have CBS pay a settlement (for “60 Minutes” trying to manipulate the election, which is what it did). The fact that the theory makes no sense doesn’t seem to matter, because the Trump Deranged’s theories seldom make sense.
First, the show is unprofitable. Second, Colbert is still going to be on the air for almost another year, and, as he showed this week, he plans on spending that time with more spit-flecked rants about how much he hates Donald Trump. “The gloves are off!” he told his barking fans this week. That should be interesting: when the gloves were on he called the President “Putin’s cock holster.” Colbert blustered, “And now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off. Yeah! I can finally — I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now: I don’t care for him. Doesn’t seem to have, like, the skill set. Doesn’t have the skill set to be president. You know, just not a good fit. That’s all.”
This creep who claims to speak “truth to power” never had the guts to focus his comic sights on the puppet President in the Biden White House, the babbling, cackling VP, the incompetent press secretary, the host’s favorite party’s clown show during the State of the Union Address, or the Squad, including the House member who said he mistook a fire alarm for a door latch. Colbert knows little to nothing about what the “skill set” is to be President (I do, incidentally), and anyone who relies on a hack comic to define Presidential skills is, well, none too bright…..like, say, actor Jeff Daniels. On MSNBC propagandist Nicole Wallace’s podcast, the star of Broadway’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” said that he didn’t care what anyone says about Kamala Harris, he believes she would have been “like Abraham Lincoln” as President. He really said that. I bet Colbert will have him as a guest any day now.
Jon Stewart, who shares responsibility of TV comedy’s single-party bias, was predictably absurd in his expression of woe for his pal. “So here’s the point: If you’re trying to figure out why Stephen’s show is ending, I don’t think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives, or in CBS’s QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night,” Stewart said. “I think the answer in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment — institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander in chief.”
I think the answer is that, praise the Lord, the unrestrained political indoctrination that has been advanced by the nation’s entertainment industry journalism, universities, public education and professions is—finally—being effectively countered and opposed, one hopes not too late, and is being seen as the danger to our society that it is. Colbert’s fans think it is a First Amendment threat that ideas, opinions and jokes that don’t only go leftward have a chance of being heard.
Ethics Alarms 
“A requiem for Stephen Colbert, the most subversive Catholic voice in late-night TV”- the title of a lead article in AMERICA-A Jesuit Magazine, Here is a ink ( I hope)m https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2025/07/22/stephen-colbert-cbs-late-show-canceled-251162?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=A%20requiem%20for%20Stephen%20Colbert%2C%20the%20most%20subversive%20Catholic%20voice%20in%20late-night%20TV&utm_campaign=Daily%207%2022%2025
Mr Colbert left the catholic Church, he was raised in years ago, but recently “returned”. Thus, like the prodigal son he has achieved “heroic virtue” status to the progessive wig of the Church.
I have yet to hear him denounce his vociferous support forabortion.
BTW i admire your lsit of ner-do wells:
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers, Bill Maher, John Oliver, John Stewart, Samantha Bee, Jimmy Fallon, Chelsea Handler and Saturday Night Live committed to reflex, unrestrained, attacks on Donald Trump while leaving the highly scatheable Democratic Party and its giant comedy targets like Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Tim Walz virtually unscathed.
It’s an IQ test for CBS — are they smart enough to realize that losing $40 million per year might not be a good economic model?
Of course, if this were really a fascist regime, he would probably have been taken out and shot rather than just cancelled at some future time.
Perhaps CBS was also paying attention to the ratings of a certain Greg Gutfeld who has been leaving all the legacy network late night shows in the dust.
Are we sure that Colbert was losing money? Because yeah, his ratings were lower than Letterman’s were, but he still led the pack in that time slot. If Colbert was losing money, imagine the hemorrhage the other networks are paying.
HT,
Did you look at Jonathan Turley’s assessment? In it, he claims (linking to a Fox News article, so take that for what it’s worth) that Colbert’s show costs $130 million to produce (annually), and was losing $40 million a year, at least recently. Most of this loss is due to loss of ad revenue as advertisers have been pulling out of that time slot.
Part of the issue isn’t simply that ad revenue has been diminishing; it has been the huge cost of producing Colbert’s show. So other networks might not be losing money in that time slot, if only because they aren’t spending as much to produce their shows.
I think it’s a valid question.
So far, I have seen exactly two sources for any hard numbers about the cost of Colbert’s show–the NY Post article by Gasparino (who Turley referenced) and an article by puck.news, something I’ve never heard of before.
It’s probably not an unreasonable assumption that the show isn’t making money, especially when taking into account the publicly available information about ad revenue decreasing over time. However, the P&L of Colbert’s show is not public, and the numbers being thrown around everywhere come from anonymous sources.
The biggest problem for late night talk shows, beyond hating half their potential audience, is the significant drop in revenue. Streaming has become much more important to the broadcast network’s bottom line and shows like late night talk apparently don’t do well in streaming.
From the linked article and some others I read, his show cost $100 million to produce for a year and only brought in around $40 million. If he went the Leno route and cut his salary it still wouldn’t be nearly enough to make the show worth keeping.
https://archive.is/M8Fyr
Opening the show, which was the first since Stephen revealed the cancellation, he told the audience, “Welcome one and all to the Late Show. I’m your host, Stephen Colbert. Thank you very much, folks.”
He added, “I’m going to go ahead and say it – cancel culture has gone too far.”
Stephen Colbert says ‘cancel culture has gone too far’ – TV – Entertainment – Daily Express US
“He added, ‘I’m going to go ahead and say it – cancel culture has gone too far.’ ”
The deeply viscid irony through which he had to slog to claim that?
Priceless!
PWS
Irony. It’s ubiquitous and, I’ve pretty much concluded at this point, inescapable.
Yes, when people said he was canceled for speaking Truth to Power, my response was to comment on his incessant jokes about Biden’s mental state.
far more relevant is Letterman’s frequent criticism of his network, criticism that garnered no repercussions (much like the way the Simpson’s would skewer Fox).
Networks don’t care about that if you make money.
-Jut
To those claiming “Colbert’s ‘Late Show’s’ cancellation is a First Amendment violation,” I contend that assertion is bunk. Colbert is free to spout his vitriol on any street corner of his choosing. He is free to use his own money to rent a hall or stadium and speak to his heart’s content.
Colbert is not being sent to a gulag, concentration camp, or re-education camp. The only thing that is happening is CBS has decided to stop paying him to spout his views. I have read the US Constitution multiple times, and it promises you freedom to speak your mind. It doesn’t say someone has to pay you to do it.
Jon Stewart offers an alternative reason for Colbert’s cancelation. He said, “I think the answer in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment — institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander in chief.” I assume Stewart is referring to various institutions that are having their funding cut for multiple reasons. Chief among those facing cuts are universities clinging to unconstitutional DEI programs and fostering anti-Semitic environments on their campuses.
Is the President pressuring universities to change their ways? Damn straight he is. Asking them nicely has not produced the desired result. Private universities have a great deal of latitude on how they conduct their affairs. They, however, are not free to choose which laws to follow. They are not free to illegally discriminate on whom they hire or whom they admit to their schools.
It is the epitome of hubris and pomposity that progressives feel they are entitled to public money. That their views are the only correct ones. That anyone who does not ascribe to their philosophies is closed-minded and evil and must be punished and destroyed.
Amen.
If CBS wants that time slot to once again be profitable, they should go back to the original Late Show format of showing old movies.
I’d say Colbert’s response to Trump was a bit over the top, ¿no? Here is a link:
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/stephen-colbert-trump-go-f-yourself-cbs-late-show-cancelled-1236466001/
We think we?
jvb