30s | Gay | Stressed | Canadian | Creator of /c/TenForward
#ElbowsUp
Alt: @Stamets@piefed.world / @Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com / @Stamets@piefed.social
(but then Jews don’t answer for the acts of Israel?)
Followers of a specific faith are not the same as citizens of a country.
And honestly I’m not bothering to read the risk of this garbage either. If Russia wants to stop being accused of crimes then Russia should stop committing the crimes.
Go read words 8 through 10 again.
Come have a suck
Now fuck off and lemme just post funny thing without making an insane leap about my own personal beliefs.
Via an extremely slow lactation process
Depends on the theory.
Nothing of value will have been lost.
Oh noooooooooo. Me being frustrated at me hitting -25 downvotes and adding an edit in calling it out has upset you. I am sooooo sorry.
Exactly. It’s a wide scale variety show that exists in a world where you can easily switch back and forth yourself. The medium as a whole is dying. If it was live at least you’d have instant feedback to what’s going on and an incentive to continue to watch, not hearing what is now effectively old news.
I wonder how many people are shifting to watching that content in clips instead of the whole show.
I was one of them. Pretty sure I’m not alone considering the sliding TV ratings and the large YouTube ratings. I had no interest in sitting around watching 5 minutes of ads in between clips when, even without adblocker because I wanted to support the show, I only had to sit through like 30-45 seconds of them. I stopped watching Colbert about a year ago but that was mostly out of mental fatigue of constant American news so I stopped watching Seth Meyers and stuff too.
If that were significant, it would suggest a different production approach, since there’s not much point in producing it in a continuous bit. Also the best person for a monologue may not be the best person to conduct an interview.
There is the problem that one of those links I posted brings up as well. Late Night shows are basically recap shows but they’re really bad at doing so. They often film at around 4-5pm EST, at least Colbert does, so anything after that fact just won’t end up on the show until the next night. But we all have a phone in our pocket now that tells us the information instantly with social media that has everyone talking about it. Late Night hosts are no longer “talking about what the Nation is talking about”, like they often like to say. They talk about what happened yesterday. Honestly? If Late Night shows all went live every night instead of being pre-recorded? I think they’d do awesome. Colbert’s live shows got more numbers than any of his other ones. People were there for the IMMEDIATE feedback and they got it.
So Colbert lost almost 1/4 of viewership over 5 years, but how does that compare to Kimmel or Fallon viewership?
Good point. I will grab that information. However, I will say that if Colbert loses a million viewers and neither one of the other ones manage to pick up those viewers? They’re clearly not going back into late night.
This isn’t the whole year but seasonal averages to a point for 2017-18. Variety says that the stats were
TheWrap says that for the 2018-2019 season, the stats looked as follows.
Deadline says the stats for 2019-2020 were as follows.
Deadline says for 2020-2021 the stats were as follows:
Couldn’t easily find anything for anything after that. The current 2.4 million viewer number is from all the articles talking about Colbert being cancelled. But even just from those years you can see the obvious trend. People were leaving late night.
Oh I also found:
This HollywoodReporter article on how Late Night is downsizing.
Forbes article pointing out that Late Night shows are just recap shows
Even the New York Post saying it’s nearly over for Late Night
EVEN JIMMY KIMMEL SAID LATE NIGHT HAS NO FUTURE. Just went on a podcast and said he has no hope for the future of the format or for his own career.
Overall, I don’t believe anyone would cancel a show that still draws over 1mill viewers for “financial reasons”. Redo the budget, sure, but not cut the entire program.
But they didn’t cut off the series partway through a contract. They just decided not to renew Colberts or bother spending the money rebranding or bringing on someone else.
Colbert alone costs them $15 million per year and his contract was up for a renewal. They were either going to have to pay him the same or more. Maybe they could get away with less but most agents are not going to allow that. Either way a fight would have been had to pay him less. Then you’ve got the extremely prime location of the Ed Sullivan theater which could be used for a whole host of things. Then there’s paying the guests, the acts and the various departments that keep the show running. You could make running a late show pretty cheap but they just… didn’t. The Late Show with Colbert is a pricey thing to keep running.
I also want to say here that I’m not trying to defend CBS in cutting the show off. Frankly I couldn’t care one way or another. I used to watch him a lot and loved him but now I’m just sorta meh and don’t care. The thing that weirded me out was that this stuff has been being talked about for years with declining viewers and late night going away and seemingly everyones immediate reaction was SOLELY to point the finger at Trump. Like he may have been a factor but I seriously doubt he was the driving factor.
I do buy the financials line. They’re trying to look profitable for a merger and the show doesn’t drag in as much money as it could and signing another expensive contract with someone in a field that has a declining viewership? I don’t see how that’s just thrown out the window instantly just to say it’s to silence Colbert. Considering no one will stop talking about it… didn’t really work out that well, huh? Not to mention the fact that we had this shit over a decade ago with Conan. Colbert will be fine and will end up landing a job doing more or less the same thing while bringing over his staff. Dude cares about the people who work for him.
But my evidence more than anything? They’re a fuckin business trying to merge with another one. Literally the only thing that matters to them is profits and they’ve said they don’t want to get involved in pre-written long term contracts. The writing is on the wall here. It’s one shitty company absorbing another shitty company and everyone just started pointing the finger at… Trump.
The comment was a good conversation contribution. It’s unfortunate downvotes always represent agree/disagree instead of productive/counterproductive.
I couldn’t give less of a fuck what makes these people boo when I’ve seen what makes them cheer. If they wanna downvote me with imaginary internet points that mean nothing to wrap themselves up in a comfy blanket and keep pretending then by all means.
Lol, talk shows are cheap to make. Even small countries with small viewership can afford to out them in with miniscule viewership numbers.
They can be cheap to make. American Talk Shows aren’t. They’re in a giant theater on broadway that they use for essentially nothing other than this one show. Then there’s Colbert’s price tag. His contract that he signed 3 years ago was for $15 million anually. That’s $45 million for 2.4 million consistent viewers over the past 3 years and that’s just him. That isn’t including the cost to guests, acts, writing, upkeep, and the dozen departments needed to run that show and fund everyones paycheque. But sure. That’s “Cheap”.
And it is insanely conspiratorial for all of you to go “LOOK! THERE IS A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE! IT IS CLEARLY TRUMP! THERE IS NO OTHER REASON!”
Meanwhile you’ve got Conan, Samantha Bee, James Corden, and Lily Singh all standing on the side like “Well I guess we never existed then.” All of them cancelled. None of them being replaced by another Late Show.
The pattern existed before Trump. Colbert’s contract was due to renew next year. This isn’t a conspiracy. Late Night is just dying.
Edit: I goofed. Lily Singh had her show replaced by the Amber Ruffin show.
Right, those things are true, but they still don’t explain this decision.
“Right. It is true that Late Night is dying, that it is not making as much money as it used to, that the viewership is dropping. But I mean that doesn’t explain why they would cancel it.”
… what? That literally is the only reason to cancel a show unless there is some moral reasoning for it.
It was the #1 talk show for what, 8 years?
Which, like I said, doesn’t matter when all of Late Night is dying. All of it. In 2015, the Emmys split the Outstanding Variety Series into two. One of them was the Outstanding Talk Shows. In 2017, you had Nominations for Last Week Tonight, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Show with Corden, Late Show with Colbert and Real Time with Bill Maher. If you go to last year? The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Colbert. This year? Daily Show, Kimmel, Colbert. The other shows are not getting nominations either because no one is watching it or because they’re cancelled. The entire award category is dying off and simply won’t exist 5 years from now.
No sane network would just cancel it. They would revamp, cut costs. Every business would extract the value from the brand before tossing its lifeless corpse off the boat.
They will if the entire format is dying which it is. Like… Colberts contract is due to renew next year. They’re not cancelling it. They’re just not renewing it.
The most plausible explanation for this show being canceled at this moment is to appease Trump.
No. It really isn’t. The most plausible explanation for this is that the Colbert show is following the exact same theme that every other Late Night show has had in the past few years. It is kind of a ridiculous conspiracy to jump to “Oh this is clearly because of Trump” from a single questionable moment when every other Late Night show has been cancelled or ended in the past 5 years. You have to actively reject facts to come to the conclusion that the Trump reason is “the most plausible.”
As I said elsewhere, this isn’t a surprise and nor is this related to Trump. Television is dying in general, late night and talk shows being hit fairly hard during all of it. The studios put so much money into these shows but they’re constantly losing money because people are watching more on YouTube than anywhere else and they can’t get the same money there.
Don’t believe me? Believe Jimmy Kimmel who said a couple of years ago that he has no hope for Late Night as a format to be able to continue in the future. Kimmel will probably be the next to go. Large amount of money goes into that show and Kimmel doesn’t have all the shows Fallon has which means he won’t have the same pull in protecting himself.
People are gonna keep shouting this is about Trump and the merger but these conversations about Late Night and whether it’s worth it have been going on since Craig Ferguson left. Then you’ve got the fact that Conan, Samantha Bee, and Corden all had their late shows cancelled and no other late shows replaced them. If the studios didn’t replace them with another talk show it’s because they couldn’t see the money in filling that timeslot with a talk show anymore. Not to mention the fact that Colbert had about 3.4 million viewers in 2019 and was #1 Viewed Late Night Host. He currently has 2.5 million viewers and is #1 Viewed Late Night Host. Where do you guys think that those people went, exactly? Because no other Late Night show got a big bump of 900k viewers. Or where do you think Conans viewers went? Again, no big bump to Kimmel or Fallon. People just aren’t watching Late Night anymore.
This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a trend. A blatantly obvious one that Late Night hosts have been joking about for years.
Edit: Keep the downvotes coming. If it helps your desperate little fragile brain sleep better at night, then by all means. You pressing a down arrow isn’t gonna make me sleep any less but if helps you sleep like itty baby? Go for it.
tl;dr - Late Night was killed by the Internet. This has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with the increasing irrelevance of television.
Late night is dying. This isn’t a conspiracy. This isn’t bowing to Trump. It’s just good timing for Trump.
Before I say anything else, I need to make one thing abundantly clear that these headlines keep being sketchy about. Colbert was not cancelled. His contract just wasn’t renewed. That is a pretty big distinction. One of them is ending a contract pre-emptively, the other is just deciding to not continue with those services after an agreed upon point.
Everyone keeps suggesting this is because of Trump but you’re ignoring what has been happening to both the Late Show and Late Night in general for years. The entire format is dying. Most people don’t watch the show live anymore, they do it on YouTube. Financially that’s not viable for the studios. The cost they put into it doesn’t equal out over the amount they can get back from YouTube. It doesn’t make financial sense for them to keep making the show when no one is watching it on its primary method. They could try to pivot the entire show to YouTube but that also would be kinda hard to justify the cost.
Like all of you in these comments seem to forget that Conan was reduced to 30 minutes before being cancelled, not having any Late Show replacement. Seem to forget that Corden was cancelled and replaced with an internet game show. Seem to forget that Samantha Bee’s show wasn’t replaced by any late show either. Or Lily Singh’s. Or that the Outstanding Variety Talk Series has gone from 6 entries in 2019 to just 3 entries in 2025. Or the fact that Colbert has lost 1 million viewers from 2019 to 2025 while still retaining topdog for Late Night in viewership? If the other hosts didn’t get bumps in viewers (they didn’t) then it’s because they just stopped watching…
Why? First off, the entire market is saturated. You’ve got too many Late Night hosts to choose from, all of them in essentially the time slot or close to it. All of them then talk about the exact same thing. The only thing you’re watching one show over the other for is the host or the guests that episode. Then there’s the focus on American politics which makes sense because it’s an American show but it alienates people outside the country from watching it on YouTube. And due to it having a heavy focus on American politics, like a lot does now a days, a lot of people are exhausted and don’t want to tune in. They want an escape not another reminder. Not to mention the fact that attention spans have become shorter and we’ve gotten accustomed to on-demand viewing.
Seth Meyers is probably the only host who could easily survive this. Fallon and Kimmel have way too much money dumped into their shows, granted Fallon has more shows so maybe more pull. Meyers runs everything on a shoestring and has a hard focus on politics, not splitting his attention. He focuses the majority of his non-Guest screentime on politics with stuff like A Closer Look as well so his show doesn’t feel quite as pulled in two directions. The guest conversations are also super relaxed and casual, seeming to focus more on smaller celebrities than having constant big ones. He’s already basically an Internet show so the transition for him is fine. Kimmel, Colbert and Fallon? They’re too big, too grandiose, too expensive and now have far too little profit from the investment.
Edit: Downvote me all you want. This isn’t some grand plan to try and silence Colbert. The only people who listen to him are left leaning to begin with. He’s not reaching anyone new or changing minds. He’s not being the single educating point. Him being cancelled on its own might have a point but considering every late night show has been talking about the death of Late Night for years? This is a reach. Enjoy your bizarre conspiratorial nonsense. I’ll go shave with Occam.
Edit 2: I messed up and said Lily Singh’s show wasn’t replaced by another Late Show. It was. The Amber Ruffin Show.
Live long… and be happy?
The honor is mine. The glory is yours.
There’s nothing in the modlog about this post being removed. If it’s gone then it seems to be because the user deleted it.