Matthew Belloni, writing at Puck regarding the claim from anonymous CBS sources that The Late Show lost $40 million last year:

Nobody can know for sure. All I can tell you is what I’m hearing. Several sources at both CBS and Skydance insist the decision was based on economics, not politics. After all, if this was about appeasing Trump, they argue, Cheeks would have pulled Colbert off the air ASAP rather than giving him 10 more months in the chair. “Trust me, there’s no conspiracy,” a very good source close to Colbert told me tonight. Still, two other people with deep ties to CBS and Late Show suspect otherwise. After all, when a network decides that a show is too expensive, executives typically go to the key talent and ask them to take pay cuts, fire people, or otherwise slash costs. That didn’t happen here — though with Colbert said to be making between $15 million and $20 million per year, a pay cut wouldn’t have solved the problem on its own. And given the company’s willingness to fold to Trump, there’s no reason for you or me to think they would stand up to any political pressure, or resist any specific demand (which, of course, is the reason to not settle frivolous litigation…). If Chris McCarthy, Cheeks’s counterpart on the cable TV side, cancels The Daily Show in the next couple weeks, I think we’ll have a good idea what’s going on. But for now, I cautiously (and skeptically) believe that this was mostly an economic decision.

In the end, the math just didn’t add up.

CBS pulled the plug on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” due to financial considerations, the network explained. The news sent the far-Left trades into a tailspin.

Consider:

• CBS Canceling Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Is an End of an Era for Television — and a Chilling Sign of What’s to Come
• Writers Guild Calls for Investigation After ‘Late Show’ Cancellation, Citing Bribery Concerns
• The TV President’s War on Democracy Comes for TV’s Institutions

Cue the crying rooms and coloring books.

Then again, these same sites have been promoting and amplifying Colbert’s far-Left shtick for years, so naturally they’re upset. Few media voices pushed the progressive agenda more forcefully than Colbert.

And, apparently, that came at a price. A hefty price.

The timing and optics are terrible, but Stephen Colbert’s show costs more than $100M a year to produce and is losing more than $40M a year. CBS execs had been mulling for a long time whether to pull the plug. Details https://t.co/gjSuazpef9

— Matthew Belloni (@MattBelloni) July 18, 2025

Puck News reports that CBS shells out $100 million a year to keep “The Late Show” afloat. Even more shocking? The show reportedly loses the Tiffany Network $40 million, or more, each year. 

Imagine that – the network swallows hard and coughs up millions just to put a late-night talk show on the air. Colbert’s salary, reported to be at least $15 million annually, didn’t help. The show’s large staff of 200 members hurt, too.

The show wasn’t losing that much money a few years back. Late-night TV show revenues have crashed in recent years. What was once a profitable landscape is now in cost-cutting mode.

• “The Tonight Show” shrank from five nights to four last year
• “Late Night with Seth Meyers” fired its house band.
• And, when CBS said goodbye to “The Late Late Show” host James Corden, it chose a cheaper program to replace him. (That show is gone now, too)

So why did CBS voluntarily cough up $40 million for clapter, Colbert style? After all, it’s show business. Recall how ABC canceled “Last Man Standing” despite strong ratings due to the sitcom’s large budget. That’s what we were told at the time.

The numbers must add up. And they didn’t for “The Late Show.” Yet CBS absorbed those losses up until now.

Why?

To grasp the big picture, it helps to take a step back. CBS’s news division has become another part of the Trump Resistance. Anchor Margaret Brennan’s “journalism” has become so sloppy she’s frequently showcased in conservative podcasts and web sites.

This is being shared everywhere, and it should be, because it’s historically illiterate, antagonistic to a fundamental value, and done so condescendingly from a highly paid “news” desk.

CBS Margaret Brennan blames free speech for the Holocaust.
pic.twitter.com/hRGvVuvjE4

— Will Cain (@willcain) February 16, 2025

‘I don’t really care, Margaret’: Vance carpet-bombs Margaret Brennan interview with inconvenient facts and common sense https://t.co/M9de6eGkjM pic.twitter.com/2iz9IjxyWI

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) January 27, 2025

CBS’s 2024 vice presidential debate put its overt biases in prime time.

And let’s not forget how CBS’s “60 Minutes” selectively edited Vice President Kamala Harris during the heat of the 2024 campaign to make her sound more presidential. President Trump sued CBS over the matter, and network brass settled for $16 million.

Liberal critics decried that settlement (as did Colbert). That, plus CBS’s parent company Paramount’s pending merger with Skydance is why the network cut ties with Colbert’s “Late Show,” they argue.

That assumes a broadcast company must ignore a program that sets it back millions each year. CBS was willing to pay that price for its preferred agenda, but not indefinitely.

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