July 18, 2025

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is Colbert’s Ouster Really Just a ‘Financial Decision?’ CBS no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Building an empire takes decades. Destroying it can take only a few years, and sometimes the vandals are in the palace, not outside the gates.

For much of the 20th century, American broadcast television revolved around three networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. William S. Paley, CBS’s longtime CEO, made sure that his company—the Columbia Broadcasting Service—was a leader among them. The network was home to Edward R. Murrow, who brought World War II in Europe home to Americans on CBS Radio; after the war, Murrow’s reporting played a pivotal role in bringing down Senator Joseph McCarthy. Walter Cronkite dominated American evenings from his perch at the Evening News. And from the days of Mike Wallace to the more recent era of Lesley Stahl and Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes set the standard for long-form television reporting.

Yet CBS’s current ownership seems determined to demolish this legacy. This evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May. Late-night personalities come and go, but usually that happens when their ratings sag. Colbert, however, has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was “purely a financial decision,” made as traditional linear television fades.

Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt.

Why does Cronkite get the benefit of the doubt, given biases his lefty biographer could spot them? Why does CTRL-F “Dan Rather” bring up zero results in the above Atlantic article?

But yes, while Colbert may have sped up his demise by railing against CBS and Trump, ultimately, the late night model is doomed, Jim Geraghty writes:

Someone out there is likely arguing, “CBS should hire Greg Gutfeld!” Indeed, Gutfeld gets about 3 million viewers per night on average, compared to Colbert’s 1.9 million. Alienating, ridiculing, and repelling the entire right-of-center audience, night after night, has not done The Late Show any favors.

But there are signs that the problem is more than just boring left-wing politics infusing the previously relatively apolitical form of entertainment. The old audience for late night just isn’t watching anymore, and younger Americans are turning elsewhere for their entertainment. (Joe Rogan has more than 20 million subscribers on YouTube. That doesn’t mean that every subscriber is listening to or watching every episode, but it does give a sense of the expanse of Rogan’s potential audience for each show.)

If CBS has concluded The Late Show doesn’t make financial sense with any host, you have to wonder what the long-term outlook is for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, or Jimmy Kimmel Live.

As Christian Toto wrote last night, “Last year, Jimmy Kimmel predicted the late-night TV format might have only 10 years left. Today’s shocking announcement suggests that the timeframe could be cut in half. Maybe two-thirds.”

No doubt, the Federation will be calling in the President of United Earth to investigate what went wrong:

UPDATE: “Late Show has been losing more than $40 million a year for CBS (though that doesn’t include some ancillary revenue). While the show still garners an average of 2.47 million viewers a night, leads its 11:35 rivals in total audience, and just this week was nominated for its ninth consecutive Emmy for outstanding talk/variety series, its ad revenue has plummeted precipitously since the 2021-22 season:”

Linear ratings are down everywhere, of course, and as the Times reported, the network late-night shows took in $439 million combined in ad revenue in 2018. By last year, though, that figure had dropped by 50 percent. Measure that against the more than $100 million per season it costs to produce Late Show. By contrast, the CBS primetime and daytime dayparts are still profitable, and that programming is supported by robust license fees for streaming and other off-network viewing. Late Show, with its topical humor and celebrity interviews pegged to specific projects, has struggled on Paramount+. And of the three network late-night shows, Late Show has by far the smallest digital footprint on YouTube and other platforms.

So from a business perspective, the cancellation makes sense, and Cheeks and his underlings said in a carefully worded press release that “it is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” But… nothing is just business these days, right? Only three days ago, Colbert unleashed on his parent company for paying a $16 million “big fat bribe” to settle the Trump 60 Minutes litigation. And Colbert, who initially struggled on CBS before rising to first place after he positioned Late Show as a key voice of the Trump 1.0 resistance, regularly attacks the president and often hosts fire-breathing left-wing guests like Sen. Adam Schiff and the Pod Save America guys. If Trump has an enemies list, Colbert is on it.

* * * * * * * *

I’ve sensed that the networks have all been reluctant to be the first to pull the trigger on a cancellation in the historic time slot. CBS has now fired the opening shot, and it’s reasonable to suspect that NBC and ABC will follow. So no, I wouldn’t sleep well tonight if I were Kimmel or Fallon, though both have larger digital footprints and do a lot more for their respective networks. Fallon and Meyers have also been protected by Lorne Michaels, who produces both their shows, though I wonder if even Lorne might recognize that the 12:30 slot is increasingly not viable, and the sacred cows of television are being slaughtered, one by one.

Faster, please.

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD OF DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE: The boxed water hoax: When green marketing turns toxic.

Once upon a time, choosing paper over plastic felt like a personal environmental victory. It turns out, however, that most of our early information on responsible packaging was wrong.

Plastic bags are greener when you consider all the environmental impacts of both products through a “life cycle analysis.” Measuring and comparing the total impact from production, transportation and disposal are the major determinants when comparing environmental impacts.

Enter boxed water, perhaps the greatest example of eco-theater in modern marketing. Alas, it’s mostly fiction.

These boxes are not simply made of paper. They are constructed from paperboard fused with a thin layer of aluminum to prevent leakage. That thin aluminum layer is the problem, and the lie.

To recycle the box, the paper must be separated from the aluminum. The volume of boxed water consumption is so small that most municipal recycling programs don’t find it worthwhile to employ the technology to separate the materials. In eco-conscious California, that technology is found in not one recycling facility. Zero.

A spokesperson at the uber-environment-focused Natural Resources Defense Council suggested that “it’s a little bit ludicrous to put your water in a carton and claim that that is more sustainable than putting it in a plastic bottle, which is, in fact, more readily recyclable.” The scientists at the Danish Ministry of Environment and researchers at the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. agree that paper boxes are clear losers for the environment when compared with easily recycled plastic bottles.

The marketing of boxed water as more environmentally sound than plastic is simply false. A class-action lawsuit alleges that cartons are misleading consumers with false claims about recyclability. Here’s where the story goes from deceptive to absurd: To back up its claims, a major boxed water brand sought to justify its marketing claims through a third party. Did it turn to independent scientists or peer-reviewed environmental assessments? No. While in litigation, it agreed to rely on an analysis by the Better Business Bureau, the same organization that had been exposed for selling high ratings to small businesses.

I would assume that the vast majority of America’s top water sommeliers would simply roll their eyes towards Gaia if a customer ever dared to order an infra dig boxed water to pair with their meal.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Did WHAT With His Prized Lamborghini? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn what not to do in the Dollar General arts and crafts aisle, why the chicken shouldn’t cross the road, and when France Man has had enough of that Palestine stuff.”

Posted at 2:19 pm by Stephen Green

WELL, SHE CAN’T ADMIT OTHERWISE:

Related:

Posted at 2:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

Full text:

“Stephen Colbert’s legacy will be this…

“He was a gerbil of a man, an establishment shill, a toadie to big government, a follower instead of a trailblazer, a self-involved statist, a moral coward in the face of Woke McCarthyism, and a divisive, self-regarding loser who killed an entire late-night franchise because he sought applause from those who agreed with him instead of laughs from the rest of us.

“Most unforgivably, he sought only the approval of elites because he saw himself as too superior to entertain the rest of us.

“In short, Stephen Colbert will be remembered as a dick.”

Assuming he’s remembered at all.

Posted at 1:57 pm by Stephen Green

CNN’S ALLISON MORROW ON THURSDAY MORNING: Trump may have broken Wall Street.

CNBC ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON: S&P 500 rises to new closing record, boosted by solid earnings and U.S. economic data. “The S&P 500 added 0.54% for a record close of 6,297.36 — its ninth this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.75% for its tenth record close of 2025, ending at 20,885.65. Both indexes also touched fresh intraday all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 229.71 points, or 0.52%, and settled at 44,484.49.”

Please break it some more, Mr. President.

Posted at 1:48 pm by Stephen Green

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Bye, Rian. No More Star Wars For You.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOW DO YOU SAY ‘STUPID HUMAN TRICK’ IN FRENCH?

Posted at 12:41 pm by Charlie Martin

THIS IS CNN: CNN Guest Seems To Suggest Trump Might Not Have Been Shot.

The entire situation was caught on video, and everyone with a brain can clearly see what happened. Well, CNN guest Toure seems to think the official story and events captured on film might not be so clear.

“He supposedly got shot in the ear. We never heard from his doctors on that…When did we hear from his doctors,” Toure said Thursday night on CNN.

When asked again if Trump was shot in Butler, he refused to acknowledge a basic fact.

“I wasn’t there. I don’t know. I don’t know,” Toure further said.

Complete stupidity.

Watch the mind-boggling moment unfold below…:

For the record, a common conspiracy theory pushed at the time was that Trump was struck by glass from a teleprompter.

That, of course, is complete nonsense for one very simple reason. The teleprompters remained intact during the event.

They would have shattered if a bullet had hit either of the two on the stage. You can see the teleprompters in the photo below.

It’s Toure Neblett. No wonder CNN is so deeply underwater these days:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll