{"id":93340,"date":"2025-07-26T05:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T05:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93340\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T05:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T05:56:10","slug":"david-letterman-blasts-cbs-for-stephen-colbert-late-show-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/93340\/","title":{"rendered":"David Letterman Blasts CBS for Stephen Colbert &#8216;Late Show&#8217; Cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/david-letterman\/\" id=\"auto-tag_david-letterman\" data-tag=\"david-letterman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Letterman<\/a> unloaded on <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/cbs\/\" id=\"auto-tag_cbs\" data-tag=\"cbs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CBS<\/a> and Skydance on Friday for cancelling \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d which he launched 32 years ago, saying the network had mistreated his successor, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/stephen-colbert\/\" id=\"auto-tag_stephen-colbert\" data-tag=\"stephen-colbert\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Colbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tIn an interview <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kYpwujMwCSg&amp;ab_channel=Letterman\" target=\"_blank\">posted to his YouTube channel<\/a>, Letterman said he does not buy the <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/news\/cbs-cancel-late-show-stephen-colbert-financial-decision-1236464356\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">official explanation<\/a> that the show was cancelled for financial reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThis is pure cowardice,\u201d Letterman said. \u201cThey did not do the correct thing. They did not handle Stephen Colbert \u2014 the face of that network \u2014 in the way he deserves to have been handled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tLetterman offered his first comments on the cancellation in a Zoom interview with Barbara Gaines, who was executive producer of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d for 15 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe former late night host brought up Paramount\u2019s $16 million payment to settle President Trump\u2019s lawsuit over a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview, saying the company had \u201cdecided they didn\u2019t care about freedom of the press.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tLetterman also mocked Skydance Media, soon to be the new owner of Paramount, asking if it is a discount airline and referring to founder David Ellison as \u201cthe Oracle twins.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cThe Ellison twins, the Oracle boys, they don\u2019t want any trouble along the lines of freedom of the press or free speech or freedom of expression,\u201d Letterman said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to get their hands dirty. They don\u2019t want the government going after them, because that concept of freedom of the press and freedom  of speech \u2014 that\u2019s so old-fashioned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tImagining a conversation between the \u201cEllison twins\u201d and CBS, Letterman suggested that the new owners wanted Colbert ousted to avoid problems with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cSo they say to the CBS people, \u2018Geez, what about that kid, Stephen Colbert? He\u2019s always shooting his mouth off about the administration. We don\u2019t want any trouble from that guy,&#8217;\u201d Letterman said. \u201cSo the CBS people say, \u2018Hey, boys, here\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do. Not only are we going to get rid of that guy, we\u2019re going to get rid of the entire franchise so you don\u2019t have to worry about another guy. It\u2019s gone, buddy.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tReports have said that \u201cThe Late Show\u201d was losing $40 million to $50 million a year. But Letterman said he found that to be an unpersuasive excuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cHere\u2019s what I know. If they were losing this kind of money, you\u2019re telling me losing this kind of money happened yesterday?\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll bet they were losing this kind of money a month ago. I\u2019ll bet they were losing this kind of money six weeks ago. Or they have never been losing money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tAs a late-night host, Letterman often mocked his corporate overlords at NBC and CBS. Colbert succeeded him when he retired in 2015.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tHe said he believes Colbert will be fine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cFor Steven, I love this. He\u2019s a martyr,\u201d he said. \u201cGood for him. And if you listen carefully, you can hear them unfolding chairs at the Hall of Fame for his induction, right?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Letterman unloaded on CBS and Skydance on Friday for cancelling \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d which he launched 32&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[15328,47407,171,13895,47174,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-93340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-cbs","9":"tag-david-letterman","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-stephen-colbert","12":"tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114917997626422438","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93340","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=93340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}