I work for a CBS affiliate and that’s not what I’ve been told necessarily. There will be a show that competes with Kimmel. It just won’t be part of the “Late Night” series
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CBS cancels The Late Show
- Thread starter EricSam
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It’s not in CBS’ best interest to just give up on a time slot in which a sizeable audience is there. It’s not like only 20 people are watching like everyone on this board swears
Byron's syndicated programming portfolio is largely evergreen and simple to produce. He makes money, CBS saves money. Win-win.
A show that would "compete" with Kimmel would be incredibly expensive to produce, and isn't that the reason why Colbert got a 10-month notice? A less-expensive late night show ... you might as well have Byron Allen buy the airtime. Or just have CBS News do a newscast.
That audience is declining precipitatiously. CBS saw the writing on the wall and is conceding the audience. They already did with James Corden and @fter Midnight.
That makes sense to me. There were costs associated with that name and franchise that they don't want to pay.
They have other internal resources they can use for less.
Why would any profit making company do that? They might as well shut the network down.
Paramount is in the content creation business. They have lots of content for that time that they can make money with.
We’ve also got to remember too, the format After Midnight had actually worked and was cost effective. The show got renewed for a third season. Then she decided she wanted to return to stand up
A show modelled after The Late Late Show With Tom Snyder pops into my mind. No band, no audience, just a host and a guest. Not too much different to how podcasts are now. Obviously won't be as cheap as a podcast as there will be a higher cost like a fairly paid host, union crews, TV studio rentals, and more.
It was called, "The Tomorrow Show".
That was his show on NBC. "The Late Late Show" was his CBS show.
i think if CBS doesn't give in to pressure from Colbert's fans to "Uncancel" the show, CBS just gives the time slot back and most CBS O&O expands their late local news to add 30 more minutes and then airs syndicated programing or a "Local Sports recap" show at the Colbert timeslot.
i can see KTVT CBS Texas expanding the 10 PM news and adding a 30-minute sports show to compete with KDFW Fox 4's Free For All.
i can see KTVT CBS Texas expanding the 10 PM news and adding a 30-minute sports show to compete with KDFW Fox 4's Free For All.
That's only good in the Central and Mountain time zones. The audience for an extended newscast between 11:35 and 12:05 (on the east and west coasts) is abysmally low.
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It's not a bad idea, but here are the hurdles:
Snyder's original late-night show, Tomorrow, aired at 1:00 a.m. from 1973-1980. The Tonight Show was 90 minutes in those days. When Tonight cut back to 60 minutes in 1980, Snyder moved to 12:30, but two years later, NBC decided to put Letterman in that timeslot and offered Snyder 1:30. Snyder quit.
Letterman felt bad about it, became friends with Snyder, and after Dave's move to 11:30 on CBS, his company, Worldwide Pants, launched the Late Late Show with Tom as host---and again, that was a 12:35 show, not an 11:35.
Even when the topic was rock and roll---even outrageous rock and roll, an hour of conversation could tax attention spans of those not especially into Tom or the guest:
You need a world-class interviewer. The typical podcast vibe's not gonna cut it. There are a million of them. This would just be another one unless you have someone who can talk to anybody and get them to say and do stuff that will go viral the next morning.
You need to book compelling guests---you're still up against Kimmel and Fallon, who book major stars. Seth Meyers had Taylor Swift Wednesday---at 12:35.
The existing audience for CBS in that hour is pissed off. They're also used to a big, flashy late-night show with pointed political humor and big-name guests. Expect most of them to defect to Kimmel (Colbert appearing on Kimmel last week and vice-versa on the same night was essentially Stephen's endorsement).
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Actually, I suspect what we'll see is a news product. And I've only started thinking that this week.
Typically, that would be too expensive to produce, but Paramount's deal with Bari Weiss to acquire The Free Press and put her in charge of CBS News is a terrific incentive for them to have a CBS/The Free Press-branded news vehicle (likely a magazine-style thing that can be produced relatively inexpensively).
Part of the backlash in mainstream media in general and CBS News in particular against Weiss is that she's branded herself a centrist but often gives oxygen to right-wing philosophy.
apnews.com
An 11:35 hour from her division with her philosophy (and again, heavy on the Free Press branding) against Kimmel could make the current administration very happy, especially if it draws numbers.
It could also, done right, be a young-skewing news audience, which CBS has been chasing and failing to catch for 40 years:
And yes, I did use that as a gratuitous excuse to run video of Jane Wallace and Meredith Viera in their late 20s again. Sue me.
Typically, that would be too expensive to produce, but Paramount's deal with Bari Weiss to acquire The Free Press and put her in charge of CBS News is a terrific incentive for them to have a CBS/The Free Press-branded news vehicle (likely a magazine-style thing that can be produced relatively inexpensively).
Part of the backlash in mainstream media in general and CBS News in particular against Weiss is that she's branded herself a centrist but often gives oxygen to right-wing philosophy.
In CBS role, Bari Weiss goes from critic of mainstream news to one of its gatekeepers
Bari Weiss has been unflinchingly critical of mainstream news outlets. Now, she's set to run one. The 41-year-old founder of The Free Press site was named this week as CBS News' editor-in-chief.
apnews.com
An 11:35 hour from her division with her philosophy (and again, heavy on the Free Press branding) against Kimmel could make the current administration very happy, especially if it draws numbers.
It could also, done right, be a young-skewing news audience, which CBS has been chasing and failing to catch for 40 years:
And yes, I did use that as a gratuitous excuse to run video of Jane Wallace and Meredith Viera in their late 20s again. Sue me.
That isn't going to happen. But if it did, it would be a throwback to the era when a lot of ABC and CBS affiliates either delayed or preempted their network's late night schedules in favor of off-network sitcom reruns. That practice got pretty well stomped out after the mid-90s, so I don't see CBS giving the time back to the stations. Late movies are even less likely, as it seems that broadcast TV stations have pretty much abandoned that market to cable and streaming.
They offered Corden a new contract. He wanted to move back to England.
This was not about money. It was all political.
Colbert and Kimmel have the same agent.
Corden's Late Late Show lost $20M a year. CBS probably offered him a contract that dictated massive spending cuts and he balked.
James Corden’s Late Late Show was ‘losing up to $20m a year’ before it ended
‘CBS could not afford him anymore,’ unnamed executive said
www.the-independent.com
If it was all-political, CBS would have just cancelled it outright and yanked it off tgw air the next day instead of giving him a 10-month notice and sacrificed all existing existing advertising contracts and expenditures.
The Late Show was losing a massive amount of money for the network and legitimately had declining ratings, as is the entire genre. It was also cancelled under major political undertones. Both can be true at the same time.
Yep, and if I'm James "Babydoll" Dixon, I shop a Colbert project to streamers rather than try to get Colbert back on CBS, which---if they even entertained the idea---would want to cut the show's budget and have shown willingness to bend the knee to the current administration. The streaming deal is likely to be considerably more lucrative for both Colbert and Dixon.
And if I'm Dixon, I'm also getting Kimmel a fat raise---his profile is much higher than it was a month ago, and when Colbert leaves CBS, most of that audience is likely to go to Jimmy.
Jimmy's average nightly audience in Q1 2025 was 1.7 million. Stephen's was 2.98. Even if Jimmy's numbers went back to where they were and only half of Stephen's audience went to Jimmy, he's at 3.2. I think realistically, Jimmy's nightlies don't drop below 2.5 million when they finally settle down, and I wouldn't be shocked if it was 3 million. Add half of Stephen's audience to that and you're at 4.0-4.5 million nightly viewers.
Stephen, Jimmy and "Babydoll" all come out of this really well.
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