Canceled late-night host Samantha Bee has said Stephen Colbert’s Late Show was terminated for ‘hemorrhaging’ money and viewers, in a ‘no-brainer’ move by CBS.
Bee, 55, who had hosted TBS’s ‘Full Frontal with Samantha Bee’ before it was canceled in 2022, gave her two cents on the decision by the broadcaster to end Colbert’s show.
Speaking on the Breaking Bread with Tom Papa podcast, Bee said she believes the show was failing and that CBS parent company Paramount was also currying favor with Trump in order to gain federal approval for their merger deal with Skydance when they axed Colbert.
‘I think both things are true. It definitely was hemorrhaging money. These legacy shows are hemorrhaging money with no real end to that in sight, people are just not tuning in’, she said.
Bee added: ‘People are literally on their phones all the time for one thing, so they actually don’t necessarily need a recap of the day’s events. They’re very well-versed in what has happened.
‘It is also true that when the president of the United States has to give his sign off on a corporate merger, the thing you can’t do is make jokes about him.
‘He’s a thin-skinned idiot and we know he’s like a pernicious cancer and he cares about that stuff’, she later said the move to axe Colbert was a ‘no brainer’.
CBS said the move to axe Colbert was due to low viewership and a decline in profits, but critics have echoed Bee’s sentiment that the network crumbled under pressure from Trump.
Bee said she believes the show was failing and that CBS parent company Paramount was also currying favor with Trump to greenlight their merger with Skydance
CBS said the move to axe Colbert was due to low viewership and a decline in profits
Paramount decided to settle for $16 million on a suit over deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris filed by Trump.
Colbert then used the term ‘big fat bribe’ to describe the settlement on-air, two days later it was announced that his show would disappear from screens.
Paramount was planning a merger with media company Skydance at the time and needed the approval of Trump’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The merger clears the way for an $8.4 billion sale of some of the most prominent names in entertainment, including CBS, Paramount Pictures, and Nickelodeon.
‘Insiders’ immediately maintained to publications like Puck and Variety the top-rated show was canceled due to being a money pit what was losing $40million a year.
Colbert earns between $15 million and $20 million a year, with his staff likely making up most of the rest of the cost.
Following the announcement of The Late Show’s cancellation, Trump took to Truth Social to gloat over the news in a celebratory post.
‘I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,’ he wrote.
Critics believe that the network crumbled under pressure from Trump and his administration in axing Colbert
The merger deal was approved by the FCC last week. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency’s review of the proposed merger was not connected to the lawsuit.
Carr said he welcomed ‘Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.
‘In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.’
Carr also hailed what he called a victory in ‘the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination.’
The FCC voted 2-1 to approve the deal, with Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez dissenting.