From the start of his career as a late-night television star on CBS, Stephen Colbert shattered the long-established broadcast network mold for who and what makes a late-night host.
His previous experience, “The Colbert Report” (pronounced as though on TV Français) on Comedy Central was a never-ending sketch, which had Mr. Colbert playing a caricature of a self-obsessed, blowhard conservative commentator.
He even conducted interviews on the show as the character, compelling him to tell his guests to be prepared for “a jerk.”
Before CBS, Mr. Colbert had almost never appeared as himself on television, nor most anywhere else. For years he gave interviews about the show completely in character, a guy who could not have been more opposite to the real Mr. Colbert in personality or political views.
Everyone had to be in on the fake news joke. It was a masterful, one-of-a-kind performance, one of the sharpest, most astute political satires ever produced for a mainstream audience — and a hit. It lasted for nine years. His recruitment by CBS to succeed the legendary David Letterman as host of “The Late Show” in 2014 made complete sense to me; he was a major comic star and he wanted the job. At the time, I was convinced it was a perfect match, and one sure to be easier than what Mr. Colbert had just pulled off. All he had to do this time was be the real Stephen Colbert.
What I didn’t anticipate was that the foundation of Mr. Colbert’s success was something new to late night: hard-core, point-of-view political comedy. He had developed it while contributing to “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central. A broadcast network, steeped in the traditional “both sides” style of Johnny Carson, was going to expect him to drop that as well as the character.
CBS did; Mr. Colbert tried. It didn’t work.
His outspoken, pointedly satirical voice was muted in his early “Late Show” performances. He looked a bit lost, as though in trying to be the real Stephen Colbert whom CBS anticipated, he was actually becoming another character — and not a terribly funny one.
At risk of losing the gig, Mr. Colbert agreed to CBS’s push for a new executive producer, Chris Licht, with only TV news credits: “Morning Joe” and “CBS This Morning.”
Mr. Colbert later praised Mr. Licht and conceded he had been crucial in transforming the show into “what we really want to do,” which was build the comedy around the news of the day (even if Mr. Colbert had given up pretending to be a fake news anchor.)
Mr. Licht’s arrival in 2016 coincided with the political rise of Donald Trump — and a grudge match made in media heaven was born.
Mr. Colbert started finishing first in late-night about a year later and stayed in the position for most of the time since.
Mr. Colbert is leaving the Ed Sullivan Theater this Thursday, after around 1,800 shows. CBS has said, definitely and defensively, that this is purely a business decision. Nobody really believes that, but even the No. 1 late-night show is not the moneymaker it once was. It’s expensive to produce. The broadcast ratings are not what they used to be. Those viewers who are left are disproportionately older, and of less interest to advertisers.
The network says it decided to end “The Late Show” because it was losing at least $40 million a year. Sounds credible, doesn’t it? Maybe not. Many insiders — including Mr. Colbert’s friend and direct competitor, Jimmy Kimmel — have noted that CBS’s calculation left out some key factors. It did not include the effect of Mr. Colbert’s star presence on the fees CBS is able to command from local affiliate stations. It shrugged off the value the network has gained from sending stars of its series onto the show for promotion. It ignored Mr. Colbert’s role in bringing viewers to those affiliates’ 11 p.m. news shows, in anticipation of the new “Late Show” episode that would air right after.
Mr. Colbert says the network never raised its financial concerns, and did not push for any of the ways such a show could cut costs. (When NBC saw declining revenues its own late-night offerings, it eliminated the band on Seth Meyers’s show and cut Jimmy Fallon’s back to four days a week.) In fact, Mr. Colbert said CBS was “feverish” to lock him into a new contract only three years ago.
Mr. Colbert, as gentlemanly a star as there is on television, has thrown no on-air tantrums. He’s mostly left the open disparagement of the bosses to his predecessor, David Letterman.
But it’s no secret what transpired in between that eager pitch to extend his run and that sudden closing notice: CBS’s parent company, Paramount, was on the verge of a merger. President Trump, who had been wounded by Mr. Colbert’s political satire, and who on many occasions had publicly called for him to be canceled (or “put to sleep” in one memorable social media message), had returned to office and in a position to interfere with any deal.
Paramount had already taken steps widely seen as currying favor with the administration, most notably when it signed off on a $16 million payment to settle a lawsuit Mr. Trump brought against CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” even though legal experts said Mr. Trump had very little chance of prevailing in court.
In a monologue, Mr. Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe.” He got word he’d been canceled just days later. A week or so after that, the deal was approved.
However CBS attempts to characterize the Colbert decision from now on, that’s what people will remember.
Having a late-night star on the air most weeknights has been a powerful statement, affirming that the broadcasters were still in the game, still offering original programming taped before a live audience that viewers showed up for, year round. Successful hosts became their networks’ signature stars.
In forcing Mr. Colbert out and shutting down a 33-year late-night franchise — while selling that post-local-news hour of airtime to a syndicated show instead of replacing him with an original program of its own creation — CBS is assenting to its own diminishment.
The biggest loss is to core America values, such as the right to speak freely, even in brutally mocking terms, about those in power. Then there is the opportunity, shared by everyone, to find and be entertained by voices like that on a free national platform, or to turn them off and watch something else.
Bill Carter is the author of “The Late Shift” and “The War for Late Night” and is editor at large for LateNighter.com. He covered television for The Times for 26 years.
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