{"id":828988,"date":"2026-05-29T01:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/828988\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T01:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:18:11","slug":"cbs-defends-byron-allen-time-buy-disclosesthe-late-show-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/828988\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Defends Byron Allen Time Buy, Discloses’The Late Show’ Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAmid continuing speculation about political motivation behind CBS<\/a>\u2018 decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a> and a soft ratings start for its successor, Byron Allen<\/a>\u2018s Comics Unleashed<\/a>, the network issued a statement Thursday. In it, CBS for the first time revealed the balance sheet for The Late Show, claiming that it lost about $40 million a year, a number that had been widely circulated.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe network also disclosed that Allen is paying $15 million a year as a \u201ctime buy,\u201d meaning that he is leasing the 11:30 PM hour from CBS and selling its ad inventory himself in search of profit. That is a flat fee for the network not contingent on the show\u2019s performance (which would impact Allen\u2019s ad rates). <\/p>\n

\n\tComics Unleashed launched on May 22, the night after Colbert signed off from The Late Show. On a night that has been dark in late-night for a couple of years, Comics Unleashed drew 995,000 Live+Same Day total viewers, according to LateNighter, a fraction of the 6.74 million viewers the Colbert finale averaged the night before<\/a>. Comics Unleashed\u2018s debut stacks better against The Late Show\u2019s L+SD season average before the finale, 2.14 million.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue,\u201d CBS said in its statement. \u201cWith this \u2018time buy\u2019 model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit \u2014 a $55 million swing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Late Show was produced by CBS Studios, so the company shouldered 100% of the production cost amid an ad revenue declines across all entertainment programming on linear, with late-night\u2019s drop among the steepest, said to be 65% over the past 6 years.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS and its parent Paramount Skydance have been widely criticized over the decision to cancel Colbert, who had been one of the most outspoken critics of President Donald Trump. The network\u2019s decision to outright axe the show on the eve of Skydance\u2019s acquisition of Paramount instead of looking for ways to improve its financials by cost-saving measures further fueled the backlash.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe person who launched The Late Show, Colbert\u2019s predecessor David Letterman, has been particularly vocal on the issue. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Colbert] was dumped because the people selling the network to\u00a0Skydance\u00a0said, \u2018Oh no, there\u2019s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We\u2019re going to take care of the show. We\u2019re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?\u2019 I\u2019m just going to go on record as saying: They\u2019re lying,\u201d Letterman told\u00a0The New York Times<\/a> recently. \u201cLet me just add one other thing. They\u2019re lying weasels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid continuing speculation about political motivation behind CBS\u2018 decision to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":828989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[78823,15328,148000,171,47174,173,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-828988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-byron-allen","tag-cbs","tag-comics-unleashed","tag-entertainment","tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","tag-tv","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116655233932551765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828988","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=828988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}