Senate Democrats are in the midst of screeching like crazed bats that CBS canceled Colbert’s unfunny reign of tedium in response to a Trump demand. They’re lying and they probably know they’re lying.
In reality, late night talk shows are dead. NBC cut back the Tonight Show to four nights. CBS effectively eliminated the Late Late Show a few years ago. CBS was warning that The Late Show was headed out the door earlier in July. It’s losing $40M a year.
But here are two people pushing the Colbert conspiracy claim who know better because they’re pros in broadcasting.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrongly called the cancellation of the “Late Show” a way for the company “to please President Trump as Paramount’s Sherry Redstone waits for the Trump administration’s blessing for a lucrative merger with a company called Skydance, a merger previously hung up by a substantively very weak lawsuit from Trump against CBS.”
“We have to also make note that Stephen Colbert is unafraid to, again, speak truth to power,” Former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller falsely claimed. “He does it in a very bipartisan way over the years, and comedy and parody is an important part of a democratic ecosystem.”
Claiming that Colbert was bipartisan is funnier than anything he’s said over they years, but never mind that.
Both Tapper and Schiller have worked in an industry at levels where they know perfectly well that CBS is not canceling a major show just off the bat in response to Trump admin pressure. Anything at this level is an involved fraught process that plays out over many months. The Late Show was a major investment. But it was an investment created by CBS to lure Letterman over from NBC. The plan to replace Letterman with Colbert didn’t work because he’s not funny and because late night shows are dying.
Both Tapper and Schiller know this. When they make these accusations, they’re lying, they know they’re lying and they don’t care because they’re pandering to an audience getting high on fake outrage.
