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Late Show ending May 2026

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Loverofradio said:
Looking at the article, Dave at least had President Bush as a guest. I haven’t watched closely, but how many times have Kimmel, Fallon, or Colbert allowed conservative guests on their shows? No matter how Letterman voted, he seemed to at least have fun with guests who were representing the opposing party.
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Kimmel has had Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy) on at least once, if that counts.

(And no, I do not mean all the parodies where an actor played Lindell.)
 
Mark Roberts said:
In the storage unit this morning, I found a flashback to 39 years ago. These covers are from September 1986. You also get to see my left foot.
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I think that article led to a book on the subject. That was when CBS was going through another transition. Bill Paley had retired, Ted Turner was attempting to buy the company, and ultimately Larry Tisch came in as a sort of white knight along with the blessing of Paley. He was the one who made the decision to sell the Columbia Records division for $2 billion. That period was not unlike what's going on now.
 
TheBigA said:
I think that article led to a book on the subject. That was when CBS was going through another transition. Bill Paley had retired, Ted Turner was attempting to buy the company, and ultimately Larry Tisch came in as a sort of white knight along with the blessing of Paley. He was the one who made the decision to sell the Columbia Records division for $2 billion. That period was not unlike what's going on now.
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At the time that Paley had retired Marvin Davis was attempting to buy CBS as well as Ivan Boesky who eventually got convicted for Insider Trading and was hauled off to Prison for a couple of years. Tisch when he came in had also bought a stake (24.9 %) in the company (And made a profit from it when CBS was eventually sold to Westinghouse).
 
gopher101media said:
At the time that Paley had retired Marvin Davis was attempting to buy CBS as well as Ivan Boesky who eventually got convicted for Insider Trading and was hauled off to Prison for a couple of years. Tisch when he came in had also bought a stake (24.9 %) in the company (And made a profit from it when CBS was eventually sold to Westinghouse).
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Were the Westinghouse years the real dark times for CBS.
 
Don CT said:
Were the Westinghouse years the real dark times for CBS.
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No, the network's darkest hour was when they lost the NFL and eight of their largest affiliates to Fox at the same time Tisch was considering selling the network. Like, imagine how devastating and embarrassing it was for them to have to go from channel 2 to 62 in Detroit. They were almost evicted from channel 5 to 69 in Atlanta; fortunately they only wound up at channel 46 over there.

For all practical purposes Westinghouse was the suitor they desperately needed.
 
Only one tenth of Colbert's viewers are under fifty years old. At the anti-Trump protest here, everyone had gray hair. Old liberals like us are a dying breed. The things we believed in and fought for are fading away along with traditional broadcasting.
 
Cold Coffee said:
Only one tenth of Colbert's viewers are under fifty years old. At the anti-Trump protest here, everyone had gray hair. Old liberals like us are a dying breed. The things we believed in and fought for are fading away along with traditional broadcasting.
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The harsh reality that both broadcasting and government will eventually be forced to deal with is that we are the dominant demographic by sheer numbers of population.

Both have kicked the can down the road by pretending we are secondary to the younger generations, and oblivious to the fact that they have done very little over the years to embrace them ... so they are left with a bunch of younger people who have not embraced them (having no real reason to) and a larger bunch of older people who are starting to demand attention.

I'm glad I did not end up on the television side of the business. It's much less stressful doing what I do.
 
Nathan Obral said:
No, the network's darkest hour was when they lost the NFL and eight of their largest affiliates to Fox at the same time Tisch was considering selling the network. Like, imagine how devastating and embarrassing it was for them to have to go from channel 2 to 62 in Detroit. They were almost evicted from channel 5 to 69 in Atlanta; fortunately they only wound up at channel 46 over there.

For all practical purposes Westinghouse was the suitor they desperately needed.
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Letterman had some great slogans for CBS when that happened:
 
michael hagerty said:
The closest I can find is 2002, when ABC tried to get Letterman to jump over to them. They offered Dave $31.5 million plus the $40 million production budget (CBS was paying the production budget and giving Dave $29 million). CBS sorta matched ABC at $31 million even:


Adjusted for inflation over 23 years, that's $133 million.

Today's $100 million figure includes Stephen's salary, estimated to be $15 million (they signed him comparatively cheap, at $6 million on his first contract), so if you take inflation, the salary savings between Dave and Stephen and the licensing fees they no longer have to pay, it's probably pretty close.

Also, the 30% New York State tax credit began in 2016, after Letteman ended, so CBS didn't have that offset.

And ten years ago, Yahoo Finance had a piece on declining revenues for Dave and for the late night category. It cites an Ad Age piece in 2009 that said Late Show with David Letterman took in $271 million in ad revenues, beating Leno by $100 million.


Now the entire ad pool for four shows is $220 million.
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Woah that one where there were Rumors that ABC was going to get David Letterman that was shot down as soon as Jimmy Kimmel came into play and have his show on ABC. In Jimmy Kimmel's case he took over the spot Bill Maher had on ABC before Maher moved to HBO and continued his show there.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Woah that one where there were Rumors that ABC was going to get David Letterman that was shot down as soon as Jimmy Kimmel came into play and have his show on ABC. In Jimmy Kimmel's case he took over the spot Bill Maher had on ABC before Maher moved to HBO and continued his show there.
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Maher was fired from ABC, that’s why he moved to HBO. He started on Comedy Central.
 
www.tvinsider.com

Jimmy Kimmel & Family Hit Back at Trump Cancellation Threat

Late night host, wife and kids stage a protest against the president.
www.tvinsider.com www.tvinsider.com


Well so what the President cannot decide what happens to Kimmel but Disney officials can decide that or not.

President Trump took a swing at ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel on Friday following CBS’s decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” suggesting he is “next” on the chopping block.

“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, a day after the news broke. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
“Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” he added, referring to host Jimmy Fallon.

CBS announced Thursday that due to “financial” reasons, it is nixing “The Late Show,” rocking the late-night TV landscape.
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Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Well so what the President cannot decide what happens to Kimmel but Disney officials can decide that or not.
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The current POTUS thinks he can control anything he doesn't like. He has been delusional about that since his first term in office.

That same delusion usually causes him to take credit for the firing of anyone he disagrees with, when there is no basis for that claim.

But that behavior gives Kimmel a lot of material for his monologue ...
 
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