Said an unnamed person who, the NYT Post assures us, knows what he's talking about, quoted in "CBS canned ‘The Late Show’ over tens of millions in financial losses annually — not Stephen Colbert’s politics: sources."
Millions = between $40 million and $50 million a year.
Are these losses because people just don't watch what's "on TV" anymore? We've lost the habit of winding down at the end of the evening with the talk shows the network runs in that time slot? Or is there a problem of Colbert's show leaning to one side politically and spurning the opportunity to appeal to half the people in the country?
RedBird’s Jeff Shell, the former head of NBCUniversal who will run the network once the [Skydance-Paramount] deal is done, has been crunching the numbers and finding that CBS is a “melting ice cube” with its losses and cost overruns, a source said. The plan is to enhance CBS Sports and invest in “truth-based” news at a network that conservatives have long ripped for its alleged liberal bias.
Are those the scare quotes around "truth-based"? Much as the quotes made me laugh and want to poke fun, I think they are more likely to signify that the Post is quoting Jeff Shell. Same thing with "melting ice cube." I don't think the Post was trying to help us idiots understand that that CBS is not literally a melting ice cube. They were just giving Jeff Shell credit for the turn of phrase. Now, the interesting question becomes what does Shell, who's about to be running the network, think "truth-based" means?
The Post has learned that Ellison is now telling people that with the [Trump's] lawsuit settled the Skydance-Paramount deal will get FCC approval by mid-August.
Ellison = Skydance CEO David Ellison, "the son of Donald Trump pal and tech billionaire Larry Ellison.
While Ellison is predicting imminent regulatory approval, it will come at a cost: FCC chairman Brendan Carr is likely to demand conditions to remedy what he believes is left-wing news bias in programming that violates agency “public interest” rules that govern local broadcasting as opposed to cable.
More quotation marks. I'm just going to guess that the highly abstract term "public interest" is something in the vicinity of "truth-based." Or... maybe it's something more like the word that got us started on Stephen Colbert — "truthiness."
"Truthiness" was The Word of the Year 2006. Colbert launched it thusly, back when he began his excellent show "The Colbert Report":
And on this show, on this show your voice will be heard... in the form of my voice. 'Cause you're looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls 'em like I sees 'em. I will speak to you in plain simple English.
And that brings us to tonight's word: truthiness.
Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the wordanistas over at Webster's, are gonna say, "Hey, that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.
ADDED: Here's Colbert, in July 2016, relocated to "The Late Show," talking about his old word "truthiness" and presented the new word "Trumpiness":
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96 comments:
Colbert was good in the shows I saw long ago, where he pretended to be right wing to see the reaction in the left wing people he was encountering. I took it as mocking the left wing reaction, and apparently everybody else took it as Colbert mocking the right wingers.
The bigwigs like his propaganda - but its no longer making money.
Most places I've worked, if you go on television to accuse your bosses of handing out bribes you don't need to worry about coming back to work the next day. Maybe Colbert is set to become the liberal Tucker Carlson, but I suspect that won't happen without a megacorporation subsidizing him. More likely he ends up in the same gutter as Olbermann.
I only watched Colbert's first show for very brief periods. (I watched the "The Late Show" not at all). What I saw was not "excellent." It was strawmanning fake "conservatives" for the entertainment of liberals. Sort of like an Obama speech.
I've made the point before--if they are trying to "silence" him, they would take him off the air immediately, not give him a continuing platform for another year. See, e.g., Carlson, Tucker.
Ice cubes melt slowly, then quickly. It's a good metaphor.
Colbert was hired because of politics, not fired because of them. Things change. The show either wouldn't or couldn't adapt. Trump outlasted Colbert, a reason to smile.
I'm not worried about Colbert, not because I think he'll be fine, but because I don't give a darn.
It isn't Colbert's fault. He did his job. He was hired by the Redstone family to push the globalist propaganda the Oligarch's wanted pushed.
It isn't Colbert's fault that people don't like Oligarch propaganda.
John Stewart was the only reason anyone knows who Colbert is. John Stewart is just better than Colbert at everything. That also made it tought.
Maybe the Progressives are having a tough year, and the studio is trying to let them down, gently.
Meh.
Ice ice, baby…
The patron saint of late night television, whoever he is, did not intervene.
Peachy said...
The bigwigs like his propaganda - but its no longer making money.
It has never made money. These broadcast companies were never about making money.
The Redstone Family made money in other places and used that money to fund CBS as a perpetual advertisement and propaganda outlet. They used it to shape culture and curate the political Overton Window. For Decades they controlled the space that Americans discuss issues and shape consensus.
This was worth losing some money for.
Now nobody watches anymore. There is too much decentralization in the information space and the investment is no longer worth it. CBS no longer has the power to shape the Overton Window and frame consensus discussions.
Apparently there is a patron saint of television.
The Venerable Pope Pius XII declared Saint Clare of Assisi as patroness of television in 1958 when televisions were becoming universally common.
Why did the pope choose this thirteenth century Franciscan foundress who was dedicated to evangelical poverty and would not have owned a television?
The reason is that Saint Clare, way back in the 1200s, was the first to experience “televised” Masses.
When Saint Clare was too ill to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Holy Spirit would project the Holy Mass on the wall of her room so that she could watch it from her bed.
https://taylormarshall.com/2011/08/why-is-st-clare-patron-saint-of.html
The plan is to enhance CBS Sports and invest in “truth-based” news at a network that conservatives have long ripped for its alleged liberal bias.
The rebrand is just an attempt to recapture the power CBS used to have.
CBS could come back and become valuable again if it actually made a good faith attempt to be an honest source of information in a space that has very few good faith actors.
But the Oligarchs that own CBS are not interested in making money with CBS. They are interested in cultural influence and expanding their power so they can make more money in other sectors of the market.
Making money with CBS is not a good investment for them. It was always about power to shape other industries.
He pulls in 15 million a year - but the poor baby leftist propagandist is .... wait for it... a victim.
200 staffers for the leftist toady.
It takes a village of victims.
Bring back Craig Ferguson.
The Colbert show was funny sometimes because Colbert was playing a character, a bill o'reilly blowhard, and had lots of good writers. When he got a talk show he had to ad-lib and play Stephen Colbert, and he's not that good as a straight comedian. He comes off as an asshole, which is great when you're satirizing Bill O'Reilly, not so much when its the real you.
Nobody seems to ask WHY all the big media companies want to merge with each other, or why its good for the consumer. A guess its "The free market" where we need to keep increasing the market share of each merged company until we have 2 companies controlling everything and be able to charge whatever they wish.
Cause that's what makes America rich. LOL.
Now, the interesting question becomes what does Shell, who's about to be running the network, think "truth-based" means?
If they report the news not based on politics but on what actually happened, that would be a step towards "truth-based". Not everything that happens everywhere is because of politics, and those who try to make it so are bores who should be beaten with sticks. That's why virtually all of the 24 hour "news" channels are so worthless. They're very nearly "all politics, all of the time".
For political-based stories, actually making the effort to present both sides accurately would also be a step towards "truth-based" reporting.
Huh. I had thought the patron saint of television was Lucy Arnez.
Like most Libtards, the real Stephen Colbert is a weird mixture of arrogance, ignorance, and bile. He's a real hater. And he's not funny in the least. At least Jon Stewart can raise an eyebrow. Colbert just glares.
The quote from the Colbert show about Truthiness is funny. But someone wrote that for Colbert. Maybe that's why Colbert did so poorly on Late Nite. He didn't hire the best writers.
BB,
Craig Ferguson is hysterical. So funny.
Leftist obsession with Trump - and all the fake scandals and lies - most American are tired of it.
Jimmy Kimmel just told CBS "Fuck You" for firing Colbert. That's our Jimmy, always the wit. Remember all those funny Kimmel jokes? Yeah, neither do I.
But there's one thing you can't take away from Kimmel - class.
Craig Ferguson - approve. He is funny.
I don't recall his politics? That's a good thing.
The point of late night TV is to make people laugh.
Leftist-Soviets are in constant propaganda and scold mode. It's so freaking boring.
They've given the cretin another year. Colbert's snooty leftist scolding expires in May of 2026. Poor baby.
Anyone who has Lying liar who lies Adam Schitt on - doesn't that prove that your show is pure crap?
I love that this sale of CBS is happening just as the files on the Russia Collusion hoax are being unwrapped and made public. And...lookie here! Network news was in on it. Who'd a thunk it?
Anyway...time to clean house over there.
Jimmy Kimmel - he cries when his precious Soviet Democratics, lose.
Is this entertaining? I guess it is for the hive.
of course he gets advertising, he grovels to big pharma,
that used to be the point of late night tv, now its just drone training,
yes Ferguson didn't give a rip, he didn't go along with the programming, so they sent him to the charades show,
"Colbert's show leaning to one side politically...".
Leaning? Like calling Trump Putin's cock holster? Is THAT leaning?
And that bit about it was economics and not his politics... Doesn't CBS have even a hint that the two are connected?
But, hey, Trump leaned on CBS. He threatened the merger unless.... what? The failing economic black hole of Colbert would be shut down IMMEDIATELY.... oh wait I meant late spring of NEXT year.
Sheesh. They really do think we're stupid.
I'm sure his show wasn't costing CBS "just" $40-$50 million. It hurt their other programming -- hurt the brand across the board -- because of The Late Show promos that CBS would constantly run during football games, Big Brother, etc. Those promos made it clear even to people who didn't watch late night TV just how hostile CBS had become toward conservatives, and even the whole idea of fairness and political balance.
they are still willing to waste 30 million dollars between now and then, what will his 200 staffers do, oh the huge manatee,
I caught one segment with gary oldman, which was good because it's gary oldman, but he don't know how to interview,
Rob Reiner, back when he was funny, gives us the explanation for Stephen Colbert's bad numbers.
Maybe the Vax-Scene will be a huge hit in Japan.
He went from vaccine skeptic - to dancing jabs in a very short time span.
Propaganda.
Not a fan…
Right after the floods in Kerr County, Texas, I saw conservative blogs like Instapundit that the reporting from CBS News was remarkably even-handed. I read a couple of their news stories and had to agree: just the facts and none of the “we hate Trump so it’s his fault somehow” bullshit that knuckle-dragging lefties who comment here on Althouse picked up from the likes of CNN and MSNBC and threw at the rest of us.
'more selective audience'
..."Or is there a problem of Colbert's show leaning to one side politically and spurning the opportunity to appeal to half the people in the country? "
The studio executives looked at last year's ad revenue and ratings, and then they looked at this year's Presidential approval numbers, and then they projected the trend lines. The same thing is going to be happening to Kimmel, I predict. This style of entertainment is profitable when its target is being hounded with lawfare, but finds itself in a deep hole when fortunes change. There's no way to reverse that kind of theme and maintain credibility - it wasn't a fad they were lampooning, instead they were on a mission, a crusade. It's really a simple case of just desserts.
who? who watches late night tv ?
Yes, who does watch late-night TV of any sort in real time anymore?
In the postwar culture, you could just about watch an 11:30PM show, get a decent nights sleep, wake up at 7 in time for a decent commute and start work at 9am, while your kids walked to school themselves. Much easier in Central Time when the show is on at 10:30.
Nowadays, any working people get up at 4 or 5 to get their kids to school at its ungodly pre-dawn starting hour then do their own lengthy commute to start work at 7 or 8 - the time their parents and grandparents used to get up!
Who does that leave to watch late-night TV in real time? Retirees? College students? Are those dependable viewing blocs?
Or does DVR'ing/watching YouTube clips count for numbers?
Part of Gutfeld's secret is he's on at 10/9 Central, so more people with jobs can watch him.
RR
JSM
they used to have those gaudy crime dramas like silk stalkings back in the 80s, before letterman, but most of that stuff has gone to paramount and other premium services,
Hardin ref Colbair/Colbertt: Yes, the best part of the Colbert Report was when the audience would sincerely applaud something the writers wrote as a parody, and Colbert was left to stare at his desk and slowly nod his head.
RR
JSM
I don't watch news shows anymore, but immediately after the Biden debate meltdown I watched for a while to gauge what the left was saying. And for this exercise I picked CBS. What I saw was unbelievable if I hadn't seen it myself. The bias dripped from every sentence. Nothing was said in an even-handed manner. Nothing.
Gutfeld used to be on at 11,
Boring and biased is no way to go through life--and it doesn't draw viewers. And then when you bit the hand that signs the paycheck--well adios muchacho. Although you do get to run out the string for almost a year.
"I picked CBS. What I saw was unbelievable if I hadn't seen it myself.
CBS News literally forged Texas Air National Guard memos to try to rig the election of George W. Bush. They literally manufacture fake news.
It's CEO isn't even American.
It's not a news organization.
people got more geometrically stupid in the 90s, thats scientifically proven, even a luke warm war in the stans didn't break people out of their rut
I never really watched Fox - but now I am addicted to Gutfeld. It's hilarious. I watch it on the youtube.
Kennedy - she speaks for me. The funniest comedian, IMO, is Joe DeVito. OMG - he kills it. Joe Machi is hilarious too.
Original Mike - All of the networks are like that. So dripping with bias for 'The Party'... Agree 100% - all verbally laced with nuanced narratives woven into every sentence.
1. The term "melting ice cube" is a phrase frequently used in the business world and, especially, private equity.
2. Redbird has an excellent turnaround plan. People love sports although the rights fees are going higher. A neutral news organization would be filling an unmet need. Joe Ricketts, in Omaha, is doing that with Straight Arrow News.
Scare quotes are illegitimate by any standard of English usage that includes the models of style set by the leading publications of the 19th century. Unfortunately, my insistence that useful rules, among other functions, must also keep the writings of the past comprehensible to students in the present invokes the brannigan that has ruined American education.
"Why should dead white males dictate how I use inverted commas?" whinges the female-trans-queer-lesbian-MAP-Negro-Asian-Hispanic recently degreed Barnard graduate.
To which I reply, consider this famous passage (famous in some ever-thinning quarters) which I will render in italics rather than within quotation marks as not to give the game away: One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing. Disregard the attribution and assume that sentence is yours. Would you put heart of stone within quotes to indicate that the phrase should not be read as literal? If my putative Barnardian agrees, I would suggest she would do better to avoid witty banter at all costs.
English must grow. We need new nouns for new inventions and newly discovered science, just as we need new verbs and adjectives, but we must grow our language carefully so as not to sever our moorings and cast civilization adrift. Therefore I deplore those teachers who do not downgrade student writings containing scare quotes, just as I deplore those school boards who have taken cursive handwriting out of their elementary curricula. Much of the past is contained in handwritten documents. Expunging cursive could render those writings as inaccessible as the Linear A texts of ancient Crete. A hateful trend I blame entirely on the deconstructionist harridans of the Modern Language Association.
"But there will always be scholars able to read handwriting," whinges my Barnardian.
Just my point, say I. When civilization belongs only to a priesthood and subject to its whims, we've lost it completely.
but this funhouse insanity starts in the morning with the cbs or nbc or abc scribes and goes on through to late night, with the spew early on, back when oprah and donahue set their hatchery
two generations of stupidity, is hard to disengage,
they used to joke about my handwriting, but then I saw what scrawl students who are not familiar with pen and paper, turn out, advanced Klingon,
In the 90s when Carson left the stage, and Letterman was not yet in his dotage, when they let a sleazy lounge lizard like Clinton be given any authority, that when all of this pop psychobabble really started to ferment,
All of this over a low rated, late night show with an unfunny, partisan hack host? I meant, Colbert is only slightly more relevant than Rosie O'Donnell. The Left's hissy fit says a lot.
Rise, Sir Trump-a-Lot.
this is when Michael Mann started to spin his tales, that Maurice Strong just amplified, the whole Rio-Kyoto contest of idiots,
OT:
Matt Taibbi is taking a lying liar who lies Soviet Democratic to court.
Good
The left have nothing but lies and false accusations. they are truly, Soviets.
In the ‘70s, drifting off to sleep in your bed, to the sound of your parents down the hall laughing at Johnny Carson’s monologue, was the sound of a happy childhood. Late night shows then were communal, and among the only places where celebrities could cultivate an offstage persona.
Carson poked fun at politicians — all politicians. Johnny (Was he D or R? - Nobody knew/cared) avoided politics with guests and kept it light in the monologue. Leno was non-commital. Dave’s barbs were mostly quirky.
The format then became an ideological echo chamber. Colbert, right down the pronunciation, has always been a preening schmo. Ad revenue for all of the shows is down more than 50% in a decade, and time-shifted viewers catch up later on social media. The format’s dead. Sadly.
I always assumed Colbert doesn't really believe any of the lefty talking points he spouts, he just does it to be invited to all the right parties. There are very few true believers in this world, which maybe that's a good thing I don't know.
Colbert was good friends with Toby Keith (R.I.P.) so he does have that going for him.
Also OT:
Here it is. Trump Russia Story - all BS
Althouse said…"Said an unnamed person who, the NYT Post assures us, knows what he's talking about,…
Heh.
"...anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist. Constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I wanna say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart."
Radical subjectivism.
"CBS News literally forged Texas Air National Guard memos to try to rig the election of George W. Bush."
Yes they did.
they're spending 100 MILLION dollars a year,
to show a man sitting at a desk.
if they could show a man sitting at a desk, for 50 MILLION..
they'd be breaking even.
they're Not JUST alienating half their audience,
they're spending 100 MILLION dollars; to show a man, sitting at a desk.
it's like they work for the government or something!
You can draw a straight line from the "truthiness" lampoon of common sense to "I can't define what a woman is because I'm not a biologist".
The Twilight Fringe at the intersection of Penumbra and Constitution is a gay old tune.
Embrace the power of "and." The Late night broadcast TV audience has shrunk in absolute terms since Johnny Carson's 32 million in 1992. (And of course the shrinkage has been disproportionately in the advertisers' target demo, which reduces the price they pay for ads.) But it is also true that Colbert's one-sided humor divided that market in half.
Peachy said...
He pulls in 15 million a year
so IF they spent TEN MILLION DOLLARS,
showing a man sitting at a desk..
They'd be making TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS a year!
serious question: how much, would it cost YOU?
to show a man sitting at a desk?
The money losses have to be the main driver of this decision. Yet there has to be another. That the show was costing more than it brought in was known long before this decision. So they were willing to suffer those continuing losses. And even with the announcement of the decision, they willing to suffer another 10 months of losses (pull-the-plug date is May 2026).
Never watched a single Late Night show of his. We'll mark that into the plus column of life. Going to bed early with a good book is so last century.
If they put comedian Shane Gillis at late night slot, the audience will come.
Bring back Steve Allen
John Henry
In another part of the forest, a friend who is a regular listener to NPR (and believes every word) is pissed at the loss of government money. I suggested that she would like it less if instead the government kept the money coming but in exchange dictated the content. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
Colbert goes the way of Corvair with a harumph of hot air.
I suspect much more than half the country doesn't want to hear about politics, certainly not every night, and wouldn't know what he's talking about most of the time.
glibar?
huh? he is sitting at a desk - has 200 people working for hi m- and spends all his time vilifying the right and pushing D-crap like forced jabs. Not worth a single rabbit marble.
On one hand it isn’t surprising a network would fund an unprofitable show. Loss leaders happen in many industries and late night would seem a place to have one. One liners permeate the network’s sports and commercial lead-ins on prime time, maybe help local affiliate news. One the other hand it isn’t surprising CBS gave Colbert bog checks to play the nasty political court jester, cranking out the where’s the beef jokes always in favor of Democrat candidates and policies. So when the expected payoff never arrives and Democrats lose bigly…why continue to write the big checks?
$40 million in losses to pull in a miniscule fraction of the coveted 18-49 demographic and beat Fallon at NBC by a fraction of a Nielson point. That's obviously not economical.
Colbert was a comic actor who made his name with a satirical portrayal of a Bill O'Reilly-type character. He thought that made him a comedian and even that it meant that his ideas were deep and correct and convincing. Anyone and anything can be parodied or satirized, but unless you have other talents (Colbert didn't) it's a dead-end.
I didn't buy his shtick to begin with. Look at those words from his earlier show on the page. They just sit there. They're cringe-y. But are we cringing at the character or at Colbert.
Some leftists thought some rightists were stupid because they agreed with Colbert's parodic character and didn't see the irony, but I think they recognized that the opposing views (Colbert's own views) were also ridiculous. They didn't see the bias and assumed that the satire was even-handed.
Is the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner forgotten? The head correspondent invited C-bert and the idiots in the Bush White House didn't object. He was scathing. Brutal. Conservatives were appalled. Progressives cheered him on. I had no use for Bush or Cheney, but I was disgusted. It was "norm breaking" taken too far.
"rhhardin said...
Colbert was good in the shows I saw long ago, where he pretended to be right wing to see the reaction in the left wing people he was encountering. I took it as mocking the left wing reaction, and apparently everybody else took it as Colbert mocking the right wingers."
Watching Curb Your Enthusiasm similarly .
Colbert's show has about 200 employees. Union employees. They make good money and have great benefits. And that's just one of the show's expenses.
I actually liked Colbert when he made fun of conservatives by pretending to be one. I thought that was clever and effective comedy.
But when he said on nationwide, network, broadcast television that Trump's mouth was only good for being "Putin's cock holster," I knew that he had gone off the rails. That's not political humor, that's irrational hatred.
Ferguson did occasionally do politics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUTNlLMtD4Q
It isn't Colbert's fault. He did his job. "I was only following orders".
Carson NEVER started an argument between his viewers whether in the bedroom or in the office, the morning after.
The only politico regularly in his crosshairs was LA's Mayor Yorty and the mayor may have been in on the jokes - usually wondering what city Yorty was actually mayor of as he was somewhat perpetually on a junket to the far-away.
No one was insulted on Carson unless Rickles was a guest.
The Tonight show was, in many ways, a local show (LA and it's suburb, Las Vegas). Celebrities came on and often didn't act like celebrities. The just bantered and laughed like people you're around everyday.
Colbert= a smug dullard.
"Rob Reiner, back when he was funny..."
Objection your honor. Asserts facts not in evidence.
the NYT Post
Never heard of them.
boatbuilder said...
Ice cubes melt slowly, then quickly. It's a good metaphor.
***************
Completely ass backwards.
The greater the temperature difference between the ice cube and its environment, the faster its temperature increases. As its temperature gets closer to that of its environment's l temperature, the slower its temperature changes.
It's called: "Newton's Law of Cooling - the rate is proportional to the temperature difference between the objects. As that difference shrinks, so does the melting rate."
I don't think it is quite that simple, Effingay. To the extent an ice cube has a uniform temperature that rises, the cube rapidly reaches 0 C if set in, let's say, a room at 25 C from one that was at minus 25 C, but then melting starts at the surface. The temperature of the ice itself, however, stays at 0 C until the ice has melted completely since melting ice absorbs heat at which time the temperature of the liquid water starts to rise again. The cube melts more rapidly at first because the surface area is at a maximum and the surface area shrinks as the cube melts thus slowing the melting. At least, that is how I see it.
Mass conserves energy. As mass decreases, energy is consumed faster. I.e., faster melting.
Also the observation of the phenomenon with my lying eyes.
Boatbuilder, it is an easy experiment to do- simply measure the change of liquid water volume with respect to time of a suspended cube in air.
Colbert's problems:
1: He told half the country to FOAD. So we dont' watch him
2: He sold himself on "telling the truth", then spent the entire Biden Admin lying to his viewers
3: He's not funny
I will admit, I've been surprised. Trump 1 was the biggest gift to the left wing "news" we'd seen in decades. They were making serious $$$ off all the people subscribing / watching to get their daily Trump hate.
Then Biden came in, and they all cratered.
I expected that when Trump came back in, the subscriptions & eyeballs would soar again.
I was wrong.
I find it hard to believe that the difference is that this time Trump won the popular vote, too.
So maybe it's just that even leftists get tired of being lied to.
But it's clear that the market for DNC talking points has cratered, and Colbert doesn't have anything else to offer
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