On Thursday, CBS introduced that it was going to cancel The Late Present With Stephen Colbert after Colbert’s contract ends in Might 2026. The information comes at a politically fraught second for CBS and its mother or father firm, Paramount World. It’s additionally the capper on the lengthy arc of late-night political comedy, a style Colbert was instrumental in constructing and which now, lastly, seems to be on its final legs.
In a press release, CBS stated its determination to finish The Late Present — which started with David Letterman as host in 1993 — was “purely monetary.”
“We’re proud that Stephen known as CBS house,” the CBS assertion stated. “That is purely a monetary determination towards a difficult backdrop in late night time. It isn’t associated in any solution to the present’s efficiency, content material or different issues occurring at Paramount.”
That final line, that The Late Present’s cancellation has nothing to do with “different issues occurring at Paramount,” appears instantly geared toward tamping down hypothesis about CBS and Paramount World’s political motivations for cancelling a decades-long fixture of community tv.
Paramount World is presently trying to merge with Skydance Media, and firm management has been appearing as if they’re involved that President Donald Trump may attempt to block the merger. Earlier this month, CBS and 60 minutes introduced a $16 million settlement in its lawsuit with Trump over the enhancing of a phase about former Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — a rare concession for a media firm in a case that specialists agree CBS would have seemingly gained in courtroom. The longtime govt producer of 60 Minutes additionally resigned earlier this 12 months, citing threats to his journalistic independence.
Days earlier than the cancellation, Colbert stated on his present, “I’m offended” by the settlement. “I don’t know if something — something — will restore my belief on this firm. However, simply taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would assist,” he quipped. The payout, he added, was a “large fats bribe.”
Colbert’s ousting feels symbolic, not simply of CBS’s obvious determination to bow right down to Trump, however of the top of late-night political comedy as a style.
Two days later, experiences say, CBS instructed Colbert they have been canceling his present.
The community’s acknowledged motive for canceling the present has the sheen of believability. It’s true that the late-night ecosystem is struggling. Nonetheless, Colbert’s present has constantly led the rankings for its time slot. CBS and Paramount World, The Atlantic contended on Thursday, now not deserve the advantage of the doubt.
On Fact Social, Trump — a frequent goal of Colbert’s jokes — is celebrating.
“I completely love that Colbert received fired,” Trump posted Friday morning. “His expertise was even lower than his rankings.”
Colbert’s ousting feels symbolic, not simply of CBS’s obvious determination to bow right down to Trump, however of the top of late-night political comedy as a style. Certain, John Oliver’s Final Week Tonight continues gamely on HBO, however the type of late-night present that felt pressing and essential 20 years in the past — the stalwart outraged host cracking smart concerning the foibles of the corrupt federal authorities and the credulous media ecosystem that enabled it — has been fading for a very long time. Now, its second is coming to a detailed.
Jon Stewart and the rise of political comedy
The late-night political comedy present as we all know it was developed and perfected by The Every day Present below Jon Stewart over the course of the 2000 presidential election. Because the query of whether or not Al Gore or George W. Bush had gained the electoral school wended its manner by means of the Supreme Courtroom, The Every day Present took on a central function: Stewart and his colleagues, together with Colbert, have been the TV personalities finest outfitted to speak about how essentially bizarre and complicated the entire thing was.
After Bush emerged victorious, The Every day Present turned much more essential. Their ability set was uniquely suited to the Bush years. Whereas the administration took on a pious pose of compassionate conservatism, it was mendacity to the American folks and embroiling the nation in an limitless international struggle. Stewart and his cohorts knew how one can name Bush out on their hypocrisy and be humorous about it, too. They have been younger and edgy, making one of the vital thrilling exhibits on tv. It felt as in the event that they have been telling the reality in a time when nobody else was.
Stewart at all times insisted that he wasn’t an actual journalist and The Every day Present wasn’t an actual information present. Nonetheless, a 2007 ballot from the Pew Analysis Heart discovered Stewart tied for fourth place in an inventory of America’s most trusted journalists, together with Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, Dan Slightly, and Anderson Cooper. For plenty of liberals, particularly younger ones, Stewart completely was a journalist, and so have been the comedians he elevated.
In 2005, Colbert developed his personal Every day Present spin-off, The Colbert Report. Much more biting than The Every day Present, The Colbert Report noticed the host taking part in a parodic model of Invoice O’Reilly, then the most important star on Fox Information. Like O’Reilly, Colbert’s character was pompous and swaggering, lapping up his viewers’s applause and pontificating on “truthiness” and the American dream. In 2006, he headlined the White Home Correspondent’s Dinner in character and ripped into Bush on to his face, in a second that Self-importance Truthful would say turned Colbert right into a “folks hero for the left.”
With The Colbert Report an accepted establishment, Colbert and Stewart developed a double act. They held a 2010 Rally to Restore Concern and/or Sanity, with Stewart pleading for sanity and Colbert for worry. On reflection, these years would characterize the zenith of their recognition.
Colbert was the primary Stewart acolyte to get a Every day Present spin-off, however his wouldn’t be the final. John Oliver received his personal present in 2014. Samantha Bee received hers in 2015. Hasan Minhaj received his in 2018. The 2010s noticed The Every day Present mannequin of news-focused political comedy unfold throughout the panorama of tv, now not a scrappy upstart, however an establishment, what we understood as what late-night tv was presupposed to appear like.
They couldn’t critique hidebound media establishments for failing to do their jobs anymore, as a result of now they have been media establishments.
There have been two large issues with all that success. The primary was that the Bush years have been over. In 2008, Barack Obama turned president, and whereas his administration had loads of foibles for liberal comics to skewer, the central joke of the hypocrisy of neoconservatism was now not accessible to them. The urgency of their comedy, the sense that they have been assembly a second as nobody else may, started to fade away.
The second downside was that success meant that The Every day Present model of comedy was now not punching completely up. They couldn’t critique hidebound media establishments for failing to do their jobs anymore, as a result of now they have been media establishments. What else may it imply when, in 2015, Colbert took over The Late Present and have become the face of CBS’s late-night lineup?
How late-night tv misplaced its chew
When Trump gained the presidential election in 2016, a part of the obtained knowledge was that this is able to be nice for comedy. Trump, in spite of everything, was a joke. He would provide all these Every day Present graduates loads of fodder for his or her routines.
As an alternative, liberal comedy faltered. The ability set that they had developed for the Bush years, the ripping away of pious lies to disclose the violent reality beneath, had no specific impact on a determine as shameless and easy as Trump.
One after the other, the exhibits of the Every day Present alums started to topple. Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj went in 2020. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee left in 2022. On The Every day Present itself, hosted from 2015 to 2022 by Trevor Noah, rankings toppled.
Colbert dropped his character to host The Late Present, however he criticized Trump typically and vociferously as himself. All the identical, his work didn’t really feel significantly biting or pressing anymore. Younger folks, significantly younger males, have been extra more likely to discover right-wing comedy to be edgy and transgressive.
But someway, with a president this thin-skinned, and a company management this obsequious, Stephen Colbert has been rendered threatening as soon as once more.
“If one thing was the peak of style 20 years in the past, that nearly inversely makes it much less more likely to appear hip and funky in the intervening time,” the media critic Matt Sienkiewicz instructed me in 2022. “There’s a rebelliousness in the way in which folks consider this right-wing comedy, proper? Even when it truly is regressive and pointing again to outdated dominant concepts. However it may be branded as being the other of Stephen Colbert crying about January 6 throughout his monologue, which could be very a lot not cool to the kids.”
That’s a part of what’s so putting about Paramount’s determination to cancel Colbert’s present in an obvious try and curry favor with Trump: Colbert’s work hasn’t felt harmful in a very long time. We’re a great distance from that 2006 White Home Correspondent’s Dinner, when Colbert delivered his jokes to a tense and scandalized crowd and Bush walked away livid. Colbert is the definition of a mainstream comic now, and it doesn’t appear as if anybody has any illusions that the jokes he cracks in between celeb glad-handing and crowd work are culturally basic.
But someway, with a president this thin-skinned, and a company management this obsequious, Stephen Colbert has been rendered threatening as soon as once more. The person who’s too uncool for youngsters is, below this administration, simply harmful sufficient to fireplace.