\u201cLate Show\u201d host Stephen Colbert insisted on announcing that his top-rated program would be canceled \u2014 just hours after finding out cash-strapped CBS would not renew his hefty contract, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n
The late-night star was told by network brass late Wednesday night that his reported $15 million to $20 million contract would not get picked up and that they were going to pull the plug on the show, according to a well-placed source.<\/p>\n
Colbert \u2014 who had returned from vacation two days earlier and blasted CBS-parent Paramount Global for settling a high-profile lawsuit with President Trump<\/a> during his monologue \u2014 decided the next morning that he would waste no time in sharing the decision about his fate, the insider added.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wanted to tell the world,\u201d the source said. \u201cCBS said OK. They taped with an audience and had to get the news out there before the audience or staff leaked it.\u201d <\/p>\n Stephen Colbert insisted on telling the world that his bosses cancelled \u201cLate Show.\u201d AP<\/p>\n Colbert broke the news to the shocked studio audience at The Ed Sullivan Theater in New York\u2019s Midtown during taping at 5:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just the end of our show, but it\u2019s the end of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d on CBS. I\u2019m not being replaced. This is all just going away,\u201d Colbert said to a chorus of boos.<\/p>\n Less than two hours later, CBS sent out a press release that included the taped comments, which would air at 11:35 p.m. ET that night.<\/p>\n A rep for CBS confirmed the network worked with Colbert on rolling out the announcement.<\/p>\n Colbert\u2019s show was canceled days before he called CBS\u2019 settlement with Trump a Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks, who oversees CBS, claimed it was \u201cpurely a financial decision\u201d to pull the plug on the late-night staple, first-launched by David Letterman in 1993. Colbert, who took over hosting duties a decade ago, will stay on the air until May of next year.<\/p>\n The Post reported<\/a> that the show was losing betweek $40 million and $50 million annually, and that advertising had slumped along with overall viewership. Meanwhile, Puck News reported<\/a> that the show\u2019s annual production cost was a sky-high $100 million.<\/p>\n A source familiar with the situation said that all the late-night shows have been battling paltry viewership and declining ratings, but that Colbert\u2019s show had higher costs, making it hard to justify continuing the program.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it was losing money like that, then it had to be canceled,\u201d the source told The Post.<\/p>\n CBS said the show\u2019s cancellation was financial. According to reports, the show had a budget of $100 million and had been losing $40 million annually. AP<\/p>\n However, several left-leaning pundits and lawmakers speculated that Colbert\u2019s steady diet of anti-Trump rhetoric, including last Monday over the Paramount settlement, played a pivotal role in killing the show.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe this kind of complicated financial sentiment with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. \u201cIt\u2019s a \u2018big fat bribe,\u2019\u201d Colbert quipped. <\/p>\n \u201cBecause it all comes as Paramount\u2019s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance!\u201d<\/p>\n The settlement of the lawsuit has been viewed as helping pave the way for Trump\u2019s Federal Communications Commission boss Brendan Carr to greenlight Skydance Media\u2019s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount.<\/p>\n CBS has previously denied that ther settlement and merger talks are not connected. <\/p>\n Colbert\u2019s last show will be in May of next year. CBS via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve lost interest in extreme POVs on either end, but I see this as a chilling of free speech and the timing seems to send a strong message that this is cause and effect for what he said about the settlement,\u201d a CBS staffer told Fox News<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThe CBS leadership could have cloaked it somehow, but made a decision not to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On Monday, \u201cTonight Show\u201d host Jimmy Fallon and other top comedians were expected to rally around Colbert and make a cameo on \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d The Post exclusively<\/a> reported.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cLate Show\u201d host Stephen Colbert insisted on announcing that his top-rated program would be canceled \u2014 just hours…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":82093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,64,15328,69,56075,49809,398,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,15329,13895,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-82092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-cbs","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-ellison","13":"tag-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","14":"tag-media","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-paramount","22":"tag-stephen-colbert","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114894679923493384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cbribe.\u201d csuarez<\/p>\n