Report Claims ‘Late Show’ With Stephen Colbert Was Losing CBS $40 Million a Year
“So from a business perspective, the cancellation makes sense.”
New details are emerging about the decision by CBS to end the ‘Late Show’ with Stephen Colbert. Despite the ridiculous conspiracy theories spread by the left, a new report reveals the network was losing $40 million a year on the show.
Knowing this, it is amazing that the show lasted for as long as it did.
FOX News reports:
Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ was reportedly losing CBS $40M a year as critics speculate politics drove cancellation
A new report is putting a spotlight on the finances of “The Late Show” as critics speculate the CBS cancellation was a political move to silence its anti-Trump host Stephen Colbert.
Puck News’ Matt Belloni reported the late-night show “has been losing more than $40 million a year” for CBS and that it had a budget of “more than $100 million per season,” contrasting it with network’s daytime and primetime programming, which he noted were “still profitable.”
“‘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,” Belloni wrote. “So from a business perspective, the cancellation makes sense.”
Belloni said the sources he spoke with at CBS and Skydance Media, the company that is set to buy the network’s parent company Paramount Global as part of an $8 billion merger, insist Colbert’s cancellation was “based on economics, not politics,” pointing to the decision to give his show a 10-month extension to May 2026 instead of pulling the plug immediately as evidence.
This was not about politics. It was all about simple math.
If CBS reduced Colbert’s salary from $20m to $0, the show would still be losing $20m per year. How in the hell was he not let go earlier?
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) July 18, 2025
John Nolte of Breitbart News, a superb media analyst, makes a great point about what really happened here:
The Only Person Who Canceled Stephen Colbert Was Stephen Colbert
Nothing better exemplifies why Stephen Colbert’s Late Show suddenly got canceled than the fact that Colbert’s prime guest on the night of the cancellation’s announcement was … Adam Schiff.
Yes, pencil-necked Adam Schiff. Yes, serial liar Adam Schiff. Yes, the dull, charisma-free Democrat U.S. Senator from California who spent more time on TV spreading deliberate misinformation about the Russia Collusion Hoax than anyone not named Jake Tapper.
CBS is reportedly paying Colbert $15 million a year. On top of that, for some reason, Colbert requires a crew of 200 (and their salaries) to put on a late-night show with zero cultural impact that fewer than one percent of Americans watch. And still, he thinks it’s a good idea to invite on a dull and divisive politician to spout dull and divisive talking points.
That’s arrogance.
Colbert selfishly made his personal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome the singular, driving ‘joke’ of the entire show. Not only was the show losing money, it was boring. It couldn’t go on forever, and it won’t.
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Comments
Colbert had over 200 staff members, probably dozens of writers, was losing CBS $40 million a year, and to top it all off, the silly dufus wasn’t even funny.
But yeah, Progtards, Colbert’s termination was “political.”
It’s no surprise that your economic policies suck as bad as Colbert does.
Make light night tv great again by having entertaining comedians host. They can have political content but they should skewer both sides more or less equally.
I wonder, in the year 2025, if there would be room for someone with some intellect to have a late night show. I’m thinking about the days of Dick Cavett.
Longform conversation like Cavett exists – it’s all on podcasts now. YouTube, Spotify, etc. And part of this whole story is the fact that all the eyeballs have moved to YT. (And for the record, I am not a fan of Colbert, nor of his politics.)
I’d prefer that they were just funny. Once politics enters the picture it stops being funny and just becomes, well. Political 🙄
“Knowing this, it is amazing that the show lasted for as long as it did.”
Naw, it was a median amount for an “in-kind contribution” to the DNC.
Doesn’t the equal time provision still exist. If so the republicans are at fault for not requesting equal time for these shows as well as others like saturday night live.
Equal time applies to political candidates only and talk shows are generally exempt. The fairness doctrine was similar but applied to campaign surrogates/supporters and to political issues more broadly but it was abolished in the late 80’s.
Dems thought this a favor to Trump. Yet they never complained when CBS allowed Colbert to do the Dems the favor of turning his show into a mouthpiece for the DNC.
Don’t extend, cancel now.
Shows with better viewership numbers are cancelled all the time.
The “Vax-Scene” song and dance was truly cringeworthy. Just awful.
It’s actually insane they were losing money.
They had pretty respectable viewers, 2-2.5 million a show. That’s actually solid viewers.
But allegedly it had a $100 million a year budget and was losing $40 million a year.
How did it cost so much money? Where did that money GO? The format is him sitting behind a desk talking to people. What were they spending that much money on?
That’s the real reason that it got cancelled. It had viewers but they were no longer willing to just throw money down a rathole of a show that refuses to control its budget to be profitable.
“… it had a budget of “more than $100 million per season …”
” … Colbert requires a crew of 200 (and their salaries) …”
WTF? How can it take so many resources to have a doofus sit in a studio make stupid, unfunny, and unoriginal remarks? What did a crew of 200 do? These days one can make a podcast for almost nothing. His show should require a crew of perhaps two or three including the doofus himself.
Does anyone remember in 2016 the doofus pounded the table and screamed that Trump would not be elected? CBS should have fired him then, and saved a lot of money.
Throw in a live audience and I imagine it creates a need for staff that a podcaster doesn’t require.
But if the staff is bloated, I wonder how much unions have to do with it.
Sure, but TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE?!?!?!?!
I have a hard time understanding what 50 people would do to produce a show in this format, much less 200 people. And even 200 people getting paid $150,000 a year each is only $30 million a year. Add another $15 million for Colbert’s salary and that’s still only $45 million a year, they’d still have to waste another $55 million a year to get to $100 million.
The only thing I can think of is they were just straight up paying leftist guests A LOT of money to appear on the show.
It simply makes no sense otherwise how they could possibly spend that kind of money in a format that’s literally the host sitting behind a desk talking to people on a couch.
There’s air fair, meal allowance, and lodging for guests along with chauffeuring, and someone to make the travel arrangements. There’s probably catering. There’s heating, air conditioning, electricity and every other damn utility you can think of and staff to make sure it all runs. There are ticket sellers, publicists, guest wranglers, janitors, security personnel, IT people, social media staff, secretaries, office managers, property managers, producers (and support staff), a director (and a control room staff), writers, camera operators, sound and lighting technicians, etc. If you were producing a show, you’d very quickly find you need dozens of people to do things you never imagined you needed done. This sort of thing is expensive, which is why not everyone can do it. This is why Tucker Carlson is successful with a small staff and doing his interviews in his home. As soon as you step into a studio and add a live audience – pow. Expense just blossoms.
If it was possible to trim the staff and staunch the bleeding, why didn’t CBS so that? I think it’s likely that CBS was paying what it costs to run a show like Colbert’s these days. Probably the only place they really could have cut their budget would have been in Colbert’s salary.
Question: How many Polacks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: An order of magnitude less than the number of metrosexuals to produce a loser TV show.
That’s a bunch of $ that doesn’t seem in any way justified. If they were making a net profit then maybe but losing $40 Million a year and no cutbacks? Nah man. Give me half that budget and I can do a better job.
Forget half. $100 million is INSANE.
There’s a TON of comedians that would do it for $10 million or less a season, and probably get more viewers.
It gets even more interesting.
The Writers Guild of America is petitioning New York State Attorney General, Letitia James to investigate.
Statement from WGA:
On July 2nd, Paramount agreed to settle a baseless lawsuit brought against 60 Minutes and CBS News by President Trump for $16 million. On July 15, during a regular show of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Colbert went on-air and called the settlement a “big fat bribe” in exchange for a favorable decision on the proposed merger between Paramount and Skydance, a charge currently under investigation in California.
Less than 48 hours later, on July 17, Paramount cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a show currently performing first in its timeslot, giving vague references to the program’s “financial performance” as the only explanation. For ten years, the show has been one of the most successful, beloved and profitable programs on CBS, entertaining an audience of millions on late night television, on streaming services and across social media.
Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancelation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration as the company looks for merger approval.
Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society. Paramount’s decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organizations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR.
The Writers Guild of America calls on New York State Attorney General Letitia James, no stranger to prosecuting Trump for illegal business practices, to join California and launch an investigation into potential wrongdoing at Paramount. We call on our elected leaders to hold those responsible to account, to demand answers about why this beloved program was canceled and to assure the public that Colbert and his writers were not censored due to their views or the whims of the President.
In the meantime, the Writers Guild of America will support our members at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and across the late-night industry as they speak truth to power and we will explore all potential legal and political avenues to fight for our members in the aftermath of this decision
So the usual BS. Got it.
What gets me is the hypocrisy.
Their letter is dripping with politics, yet, Trump is the one who politicizes everything.
They’re just being good stewards of democracy, dontcha know…
While they’re at it, they should ask James to investigate why CBS kept a mouthpiece for the DNC on the air even while they were losing $40M/year. That sure seems like a political favor to me. CBS was effectively donating that money to the Democrat party.
The problem with late shows is that production costs only go up while viewership tends to decline as the old night owls die off and are replaced by night owls glued to computers and gaming screens.
I think there will be only one soon and I wonder if it will even compete well with movie and sitcom reruns, which are so much cheaper.
From 2017 till now, Colbert lost 71% of the extremely important 18-49 demographic. They don’t think he’s funny. They don’t like his constant TDS politics and ‘jokes.’ He’s alienated conservatives, moderates and even much of the left.
Of course he got fired. You can’t alienate 70% of your audience, lose $40 million a year and keep your job. Hell, I’ve seen much better shows get the axe than what Colbert has been doing for over a decade.
Where does all that money go?
Well, the guests don’t just turn up out of the goodness of their hearts so they.
Kinda like how Brown Hillary burnt through a billion dollars, all those friends don’t come free.
Sometimes a show can lose money but has enough value in other areas such as pulling in viewers for a different show that it is kept on air. Colbert didn’t even have that. It will be interesting to see how long quite a number of these money losers continue. Reid is gone, Stelter lost his show, Colbert is over but there are a bunch left.
Today:
NYC ‘We’re With Colbert’ Rally Draws Tens Of People, Even Cops Go Home