There’s been a lot of debate about the real reason CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. CBS says it’s money. Most other people say it’s a move to make Donald Trump happy from the new owners of Paramount, Larry and David Ellison. There are some of us who probably think that it’s a win-win: Late Show is losing Paramount money and cancelling The Late Show will make our tantrum-prone tyrant less likely to launch another pricey lawsuit against the company.
But just how much money did The Late Show actually lose? Was it the $40 million CBS claimed? Colbert claimed that’s absolutely untrue, with the help of a full cast of late-night show hosts from other networks. Unfortunately, some experts say that there’s strong evidence to suggest that The Late Show is losing money, but maybe not the full $40 million.
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A television research analyst helped LateNighter get to the bottom of the financial problems the network is claiming led to the cancellation. How much money was The Late Show actually losing? “I would believe anywhere between $25M-$40M,” the anonymous analyst told LateNighter. “Revenues have dropped at a pace that far outstrips the speed at which costs can be reduced.”
This anonymous television analyst couldn’t use the data they had access to at their network for the LateNighter analysis, but by “using blended Nielsen ratings, ad pricing estimates and reported historical production costs for The Late Show, The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the analyst created a model to figure out exactly when these shows stopped turning a profit.
It was a while ago. LateNighter reports that all three stopped being profitable after 2022. Starting back in 2015, late-night ratings started to lose major chunks of the 18-49 demographic. Advertising budgets were slashed in half. “This isn’t about Colbert, or Fallon, or Kimmel,” the analyst told LateNighter. “The platform economics have changed across the board. It’s like trying to sell newspapers in 2009.”
Without some sort of miracle to win back viewers in the coveted younger demographic, there’s not really a way through. Plus, putting the shows on YouTube and digital streaming platforms isn’t enough to stem the bleeding. “Digital is a Band-Aid, not a cure,” the analyst said. “It helps, but it doesn’t scale at the level that network TV would need to backfill for what has become a significant loss of traditional ad revenue.”
As bad as it looks right now, a loss of $25 million is actually conservative compared to what the analyst predicts is coming. The 11:35 p.m. show is financially doomed, based on this modeling. By 2030, these three shows are predicted to lose around $70 million a year. By then, it won’t matter if every single politician is calling for late night to be on the air forever — I can’t think of a single CEO that’s okay with being that far in the red.
