Stephen Colbert is allowed to make fun of Donald Trump all he wants – and he has for years. The problem is when he does it… on a program that costs $100 million to produce, and loses $40 million a year.
He’s basically Jim Acosta on Substack – hacky jokes, saving democracy… pic.twitter.com/uUFEwNKgFv
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) July 19, 2025
Ad revenue for Stephen Colbert’s show on CBS declined from $439 million in 2018 to only $220 million in 2024.
This caused the show to become unprofitable, losing $40 million or more per year.
I guess the Pfizer revenue to push vax shots wasn’t enough to save the show. pic.twitter.com/xTiA5gJqDw
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) July 19, 2025
Stephen Colbert was losing Paramount $40 MILLION EVERY YEAR. The libs have absolutely lost their minds pic.twitter.com/wyorTlmZOE
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) July 18, 2025
JIM GERAGHTY: Ultimately, Math Ended The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
You can be like Chris Hayes, Brian Stelter, Vox, The New Republic, Adam Schiff, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other progressives, and choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of The Late Show is a sinister plot by spineless, cowardly corporate executives who are terrified of irking President Trump and who desperately want the Federal Communications Commission to approve the merger of CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, with Skydance Media. (And, it should be noted, Colbert’s choice to turn the show into a four-nights-a-week version of the speaker list at the quadrennial Democratic National Convention.) That is a dramatic world, with noble heroes and dastardly villains, plotting against the interests of the public, punishing a brave comedian, smashing dissent, and bending the knee in obedience to a ruthless, vindictive, power-mad president.
Or you choose to believe you live in a world where the ending of the show is a reflection of the fact that CBS was losing $40 million each year on the show, as the Wall Street Journal reports today. And as much fun as it would be to blame Colbert for being greedy and making the show unprofitable with his $20 million per year salary, with numbers like that, the show would still be unprofitable even if he worked for free.
Reuters adds, “the show’s ad revenue plummeted to $70.2 million last year from $121.1 million in 2018, according to ad tracking firm Guideline.” If a show’s ad revenue gets nearly cut in half over a six-year period, that is a serious and worsening problem, and an indication that it isn’t a reflection of a one-year blip or temporary economic pressures.
That is a much less exciting world. In that world, Colbert’s nightly denunciation of Trump was not much of a factor in the show’s fate, other than maybe alienating roughly half the potential audience for the show.
