CBS jabs Stephen Colbert for losing $40 million in | TV Shows

CBS made an apparent dig at Stephen Colbert for losing the community $40 million a 12 months as it announced his alternative.

On Thursday, May 21, the 62-year-old late-night discuss show host formally signed off on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which debuted in 1993 and was initially hosted by David Letterman until 2015. CBS announced the show’s cancellation in July, citing financial causes.

Despite the finale breaking data with large viewership, CBS uncared for to point out their departing star’s exit the next day on its morning program, CBS Mornings. According to a source, the omission was deliberate. Now, CBS has fired another shot at Colbert.

Without naming Colbert, the community claimed he’d been depleting hundreds of thousands of {dollars} each 12 months, while revealing that his late-night slot would get replaced by Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed.

“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost-prohibitive to continue,” the community said in a assertion.

The assertion, which was shared with Variety and a number of other shops on Thursday, May 28, concluded, “With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit — a $55 million swing.”

Allen’s Comics Unleashed has been syndicated since 2006. CBS is now leasing the airtime Colbert used to Allen’s media company, which can deal with advert gross sales.

Allen lately told GWN he is not going to focus on politics as Colbert did. “What I’m doing with Comics Unleashed, we don’t talk about politics. We don’t talk about anything that’s topical,” Allen said. “We don’t do anything that’s racist or sexist or anti-Semitic or homophobic. Just be funny and don’t offend.”

Following Colbert’s profitable finale, CBS failed to point out their departing star’s exit the next day on its morning program, CBS Mornings. According to a source, the omission was deliberate and stemmed from one of the host’s earlier jokes about fellow colleague Tony Dokoupil.

During the May 14 episode of The Late Show, Colbert devoted half of his monologue to ribbing the community and the CBS Evening News anchor over a reporting mishap.

While President Trump was in China for a state go to, most major news shops had correspondents on location masking his assembly with Xi Jinping.

However, Dokoupil wasn’t among them. He had failed to acquire a visa in time to enter the nation. Instead, he reported on the summit remotely from Taipei, Taiwan, over 1,000 miles away.

When Colbert broke the story on his show, he quipped, “All the news teams are on the ground in China to cover this epic and historic summit. All except one…

“Well, that is disappointing, but it does match in with their slogan. ‘CBS News: when occasions occur, we’re at most one nation away.'”

Afterward, CBS selected not to reply, which may clarify why Colbert’s finale went unmentioned. However, a source revealed to Puck‘s Matthew Belloni that it “wasn’t an oversight.”

“I’m told the ghosting was a particular directive from CBS News president Tom Cibrowski, who hated Colbert’s latest bit mocking their failure to secure a China visa for anchor Tony Dokoupil,” the founder wrote.

“Colbert ‘kicked colleagues when they had been down,’ one source at CBS News told me today. ‘It was unprofessional and unprovoked.'”

Colbert used his final moments on The Late Show to deliver another jab at CBS. During a moment in the show, Colbert spoke out about music licensing.

“Peanuts is a highly effective model and cooperation in and of itself,” Colbert said during the segment. The comment came as his studio band began playing a familiar tune from the popular cartoon.

Colbert continued, “Anyone illegally utilizing that music is gonna have to pay through the nostril–,” The band then started playing the song. To which Colbert responded, “Is that band still taking part in the same peanuts tune that I just said people are being sued for?”

“Oh no! I hope this does not price CBS any money!” Colbert sarcastically concluded. Viewers were left in hysterics over the moment.

The announcement of The Late Show’s cancellation came just days after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount, the network’s parent company, over its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump, related to his lawsuit concerning a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris.

Months later, Colbert has accepted the cancellation and his tenure as host. He told People, “I attempted never to take for granted filming in the Ed Sullivan Broadway theater, having that great viewers, or being able to work with the funniest people I do know every day and make jokes about the issues that make me most anxious.”