\u201cLate-night has a huge problem right now,\u201d Shell said, according to Deadline<\/a>. <\/p>\n He noted Colbert\u2019s show is popular and has viewing figures on par with predecessor David Letterman\u2019s iconic stint as host. However, he said the late-night format is suffering from changing viewing habits and declining ad revenue compared to previous years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is that 80 percent of the viewership and growing is on YouTube,\u201d Shell said. He explained that since YouTube pays \u201c45 cents on the dollar,\u201d television companies cannot \u201cmake it work economically anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n The Late Show cancellation has sparked major backlash, especially since it came shortly after Colbert criticized CBS News for buckling to President Donald Trump and agreeing to pay $16 million<\/a> to settle a lawsuit over the president\u2019s complaints about the editing of 60 Minutes\u2019 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election.<\/p>\n In a July monologue, Colbert said Trump\u2019s lawsuit was \u201ccompletely without merit\u201d and suggested the $16 million was \u201ca big fat bribe\u201d<\/a> as Paramount\u2019s owners needed the Trump administration to approve the sale of CBS to Skydance. <\/p>\n He also warned Trump and his administration that the \u201cgloves are off\u201d until the show officially ends in May 2026.<\/a><\/p>\n Last week, George Cheeks, chair of TV media at CBS, also said the decision to cancel Colbert was purely economic. <\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge in late night is that the advertising marketplace is in significant secular decline,\u201d Cheeks said <\/a>following Skydance\u2019s acquisition of Paramount Global. \u201cWe are huge fans of Colbert, we love the show, unfortunately the economics made it a challenge for us to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Puck<\/a> and the New York Post <\/a>reported The Late Show lost around $40 million a year and cost more than $100 million annually to produce, including Colbert\u2019s reported $15\u2013$20 million salary per season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paramount\u2019s new president, Jeff Shell, has highlighted a \u201chuge problem\u201d with the current late-night talk show format following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[33886,4080,3686,77,105986,68435,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-344627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cbs-news","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-donald-j-trump","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-late-show","13":"tag-stephen-colbert","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115028763914128101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/VO24JKZ5BNH4HK3DSNGWV5YFAY.jpg\")
Stephen Colbert said CBS News knew they could have fought Donald Trump’s lawsuit alleging it deceptively edited their interview with Kamala Harris, but chose to settle. Scott Kowalchyk\/CBS via Getty Images) <\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/TLV2VIUT5NCNLAEZGYZMSMZKUY.jpg\")
Donald Trump celebrated the cancelation of he “Late Show,” posting on Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert was fired.\u201d Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n