Byron Allen gets the Colbert timeslot

[michael hagerty]

Wow, only 6M for the finale? That pales in comparison to what Letterman pulled and is a small fraction of what Leno and Carson pulled for their final shows.

9.1 million when counting DVR playback within 7 days.

Colbert’s 'Late Show' Finale Jumps 35% in Delayed Viewing to 9.1 Million - LateNighter

First on LateNighter: Stephen Colbert left CBS late night Thursday night, but viewers kept watching his 'Late Show' finale.

latenighter.com

Add 5.6 million who have watched it in the past 7 days on YouTube:



And you’re at 14.7 million, plus whatever viewing has happened on Paramount Plus…and that puts
Colbert at least one million viewers ahead of Dave’s 13.76 million viewers 11 years ago.

So let’s cut the crap.

 

[umfan]

Leno and Carson? 😆😆😆 And Letterman had been doing late night far longer including the NBC to CBS drama.

Let’s at least pretend to have some context.

The context is the audiences for the finales of those hosts. That is a basis to compare what Colbert got, which was much lower.

 

[TheBigA]

The context is the audiences for the finales of those hosts. That is a basis to compare what Colbert got, which was much lower.

But the REAL context is that audiences for ALL broadcast TV is down.

In fact most of the time Colbert had more viewers at 11:30 than most network shows had in prime time. That's the real context that you choose to ignore.

 

[michael hagerty]

The context is the audiences for the finales of those hosts. That is a basis to compare what Colbert got, which was much lower.

Carson was 34 years ago. There is no analogy to be had with which to compare audiences for broadcast TV in that third of a century.

Leno was 12 years ago. He got 14.6 million—which is 100,000 fewer than Colbert without counting whatever the number is for Paramount Plus viewing (see my post above).

Jay Leno's Final Tonight Show Ratings: The Biggest Audience Since 1998

The final episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as host brought in big numbers for NBC

www.eonline.com

So—-the truth is Colbert got more than Dave, and more than Jay.

Call the doctor—-your hardon for Colbert has lasted way more than four hours….and, as with Susan Rice, every one of your posts has a major disconnect from the truth.

 

[michael hagerty]

CBS says they'll make $15 million off Comics unleashed, compared to losing $40 million on Colbert.

CBS Says Late-Night Deal With Byron Allen Will Generate $15 Million in Profit

CBS Says Late-Night Deal With Byron Allen Will Generate $15 Million in Profit

variety.com

Maybe. Essential pull-quote:

“But the numbers being shared by the network raise a larger question: what exactly is being counted, what’s being left out, and how much can ratings really be separated from the economics of a commercial broadcast network?

CBS has not publicly broken down how it arrived at the $40 million annual loss figure for The Late Show. The network’s statement does not say whether that calculation includes only the direct cost of producing the show against national advertising revenue, or whether it accounts for other forms of value a No. 1 late-night franchise provided CBS and its affiliates.

That distinction is not academic. Network late night has never existed in a vacuum. The shows generate national ad sales, yes, but they also sit inside a broader broadcast ecosystem that includes affiliate fees, local advertising, tune-in for the late local news, and viewing habits that can carry into the next daypart.

If Comics Unleashed continues to draw a smaller audience than The Late Show, local stations will have less audience to sell around the hour. If CBS affiliates are being compensated in some other way for the change—perhaps in the form of a reduced affiliate fee—that too would play a part in the broader economics of the decision. And if viewers switch to NBC or ABC at 11:35, those habits could matter beyond the late-night hour itself.

The central question is not whether a time-buy model can make CBS’ 11:35 hour immediately more profitable. By CBS’ own accounting, it can. The question is whether the company’s $55 million swing captures the full cost and value of exiting the traditional late-night business.

There is a real argument that the traditional model no longer works. Late-night audiences have declined across the board, production costs remain high, and the online clips that drive cultural conversation are difficult for networks to monetize at the same scale as linear advertising.

But the ratings still matter, even if they matter differently. They matter to affiliates. They matter to advertisers. And losing viewers in one time period makes it that much harder to get them back in the next.

One veteran network executive compared CBS’ logic to NBC’s short-lived 10pm Jay Leno experiment, when the network argued that cheaper programming did not need to win the hour to make financial sense—only to see weaker rating ripple into affiliate newscasts and Conan O’Brien’s newly launched Tonight Show, and eventually force a messy reversal. While allowing that the stakes are much lower in this case, “this feels like the same kind of financial logic with blinders on,” the executive said.“

Full story:

CBS Says Byron Allen Gives It a $55M Swing—The Math Is More Complicated

CBS says Byron Allen’s 'Comics Unleashed' turns 11:35 from a $40M annual loss into a $15M profit—but the math isn’t quite that simple.

latenighter.com

 

[fybush]

There's another piece to this, too.

The fragile economic model of broadcast TV these days is heavily dependent on retransmission consent money flowing from cable/sat/OTT providers through local stations to the networks.

And of course the underlying logic of retrans consent is that when there's a dispute between station ownership groups and a provider, viewers will want the network programming badly enough to put pressure on the provider to reach a new deal, even if it's at a higher cost.

The huge danger of CBS making the decisions it's making is this: the next time there's a retrans consent fight between a group that owns CBS affiliates and a provider, who's going to put pressure on the provider to settle, if there's less and less on the network that they care about seeing?

Nobody's going to go to the mat just to be able to see Comics Unleashed, or a neutered 60 Minutes, or Tony Dokoupil. Which pretty much leaves NFL in season and a handful of prime time shows as the last big mass-appeal offerings that could keep viewers fighting to retain CBS access.

There's a very real risk there. Because if the next big retrans fight finds viewers shrugging and saying "ehhh, the things I used to watch on CBS are gone, who cares?," that could create a real hit to the bottom line of both affiliate groups and the network.

 

[TheBigA]

The huge danger of CBS making the decisions it's making is this: the next time there's a retrans consent fight between a group that owns CBS affiliates and a provider, who's going to put pressure on the provider to settle, if there's less and less on the network that they care about seeing?

Combine that with the ongoing cheapening of local news brought on by the Nexstar merger, and it becomes even worse.

I can't imagine any viewers care that CBS is making more money with Comics Unleased than they were with Colbert. I can't imagine any affiliates care. But what everyone sees is a cheapening of the product. They're paying for 12 ounces of coffee and instead getting 10. That realization isn't good for business. We see it in radio. People don't like the fact that radio isn't what it was. But they don't pay for radio. They pay for cable.

As far as the NFL is concerned, they're covering their bases by making their games available in other ways.

 

[michael hagerty]

There's another piece to this, too.

The fragile economic model of broadcast TV these days is heavily dependent on retransmission consent money flowing from cable/sat/OTT providers through local stations to the networks.

And of course the underlying logic of retrans consent is that when there's a dispute between station ownership groups and a provider, viewers will want the network programming badly enough to put pressure on the provider to reach a new deal, even if it's at a higher cost.

The huge danger of CBS making the decisions it's making is this: the next time there's a retrans consent fight between a group that owns CBS affiliates and a provider, who's going to put pressure on the provider to settle, if there's less and less on the network that they care about seeing?

Nobody's going to go to the mat just to be able to see Comics Unleashed, or a neutered 60 Minutes, or Tony Dokoupil. Which pretty much leaves NFL in season and a handful of prime time shows as the last big mass-appeal offerings that could keep viewers fighting to retain CBS access.

There's a very real risk there. Because if the next big retrans fight finds viewers shrugging and saying "ehhh, the things I used to watch on CBS are gone, who cares?," that could create a real hit to the bottom line of both affiliate groups and the network.

With CBS News now a highly unreliable source, 60 Minutes apparently about to forsake what made it great for 58 years, Colbert gone, we watch exactly ONE show on CBS—-Elisabeth. Its producers, Robert and Michelle King are keen satirists and as far from MAGA as possible, so there’s a temptation to hang in and see how they thread the needle/bite the hand that feeds, but, as with every show since TV began, it’s also really easy to walk away during summer re-runs and just not come back for the new season.

If we do that, then there is literally NOTHING we’d watch on CBS. No offense to the local O&O, but they’re up against the mighty KCRA for local news viewing.

 

[michael hagerty]

With CBS News now a highly unreliable source, 60 Minutes apparently about to forsake what made it great for 58 years, Colbert gone, we watch exactly ONE show on CBS—-Elisabeth.

ELSBETH.

Damn autocorrect.

 

[Deus Ex Machiato]

There is a real argument that the traditional model no longer works. Late-night audiences have declined across the board, production costs remain high, and the online clips that drive cultural conversation are difficult for networks to monetize at the same scale as linear advertising.

One of my favorite late night shows of all time was The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He deconstructed the "traditional" show, lampooned CBS (even had a character called "Beth the CBS Executive" on the show) and routinely made fun of the show's budget. He really built up some steam in the later years of his run, with a robot skeleton sidekick, puppets, a pantomime horse (I mean, he got serious author Salman Rushdie and notorious curmudgeon Russel Crowe to to the "Secretariat dance") and even had a long-form interview with Bishop Desmond Tutu. It was absurd....and awesome.

 

[michael hagerty]

One of my favorite late night shows of all time was The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He deconstructed the "traditional" show, lampooned CBS (even had a character called "Beth the CBS Executive" on the show) and routinely made fun of the show's budget. He really built up some steam in the later years of his run, with a robot skeleton sidekick, puppets, a pantomime horse (I mean, he got serious author Salman Rushdie and notorious curmudgeon Russel Crowe to to the "Secretariat dance") and even had a long-form interview with Bishop Desmond Tutu. It was absurd....and awesome.

Craig was the best——and so was Geoff Peterson, the gay dead robot (and for that matter, Sid the cussing bunny):

 

[TheBigA]

One of my favorite late night shows of all time was The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

You probably know that this show was part of Letterman's company. The same was true for James Corden. In fact the whole thing began with Tom Snyder. Then Craig Kilborn. Then Ferguson. Letterman owned all of it. The series ended when Corden retired. At that point, CBS decided to drop the Late, Late Show branding. That freed them from the obligation to Letterman for that time period. In the same way that canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert freed them from the previous Letterman obligations.

 

[IM42A]

ELSBETH.

Damn autocorrect.

That's a cute show. I had heard so much about it on CBS News Radio on TuneIn that I had to take a look and see what it was all about.

 

[Don CT]

You probably know that this show was part of Letterman's company. The same was true for James Corden. In fact the whole thing began with Tom Snyder. Then Craig Kilborn. Then Ferguson. Letterman owned all of it. The series ended when Corden retired. At that point, CBS decided to drop the Late, Late Show branding. That freed them from the obligation to Letterman for that time period. In the same way that canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert freed them from the previous Letterman obligations.

WWP gave up control when Corden took over. That’s why he had a bigger budget. Letterman might have owned the show but stopped running it.

 

[TheBigA]

WWP gave up control when Corden took over.

Control, yes. But Letterman still got a credit on the show, and payment.

 

[Don CT]

Control, yes. But Letterman still got a credit on the show, and payment.

I wonder if that was the real reason CBS cancelled the show.

 

[TheBigA]

I wonder if that was the real reason CBS cancelled the show.

The successor in the timeslot, After Midnight, was executive produced by Stephen Colbert. It only lasted a year.

 

[Don CT]

The successor in the timeslot, After Midnight, was executive produced by Stephen Colbert. It only lasted a year.

Did CBS not want to have to pay Letterman for either show. Use ratings as the excuse but if they had an out to not license it from Letterman.

 

[Mark Roberts]

The successor in the timeslot, After Midnight, was executive produced by Stephen Colbert. It only lasted a year.

At the time (2025), it was reported that it was the choice of the host, Taylor Tomlinson, to stop doing the show. A more recent report indicates there was, at the very least, some miscommunication between her and the network, though it still says that she stepped down from the show on her own accord.

Taylor Tomlinson Clarifies 'After Midnight' Exit: 'That's Not What Happened' - LateNighter

Taylor Tomlinson is offering her clearest account yet of how 'After Midnight' came to an end—and it complicates the narrative that CBS presented when it canceled the post-Colbert late-night show last spring.

latenighter.com

 

[Don CT]

At the time (2025), it was reported that it was the choice of the host, Taylor Tomlinson, to stop doing the show. A more recent report indicates there was, at the very least, some miscommunication between her and the network, though it still says that she stepped down from the show on her own accord.

Taylor Tomlinson Clarifies 'After Midnight' Exit: 'That's Not What Happened' - LateNighter

Taylor Tomlinson is offering her clearest account yet of how 'After Midnight' came to an end—and it complicates the narrative that CBS presented when it canceled the post-Colbert late-night show last spring.

latenighter.com

She wanted to do standup full time but didn’t want the show to end. She was hoping they would find another host.