CBS said it planned to cancel Stephen Colbert's Late Show after next season, citing the weakening finances of late night
  • not_that_guy05@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    He called it. He said that this would happen in order for the deal to go through. They are trying to silence as many people as possible like any other fascist authoritarian countries.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      The jokes on them. people don’t watch it on TV. They just look for the YouTube video with Stephen Colbert in it. He can do that on his own

      • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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        25 days ago

        YouTube with those kind of numbers every day is some real money. They could create an online only channel, not constrained by formats, which could have huge audiences, with the taping done during late night’s time slots.

    • bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip
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      26 days ago

      I’m kinda with this. He was the absolute best on the Colbert Report, but the second he went mainstream, he lost his luster. Hopefully he finds a new show to host where he can get back to his roots.

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    If he wants to continue he should just produce his show on his own and air it on YouTube. No one really watches broadcast tv anymore.

    Jon Stewart should do the same.

    • weariedfae@sh.itjust.works
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      25 days ago

      TBF it only started because Letterman got fucked over and CBS wanted to compete with the Tonight Show. It’s been around for a long time but not nearly as long as – okay I’m old.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      25 days ago

      Nobody gives a shit about late night TV anymore but boomers. I mean the entire concept has been obsolete for years now due to streaming… Anyone under the age of 55 just watches clips on YouTube if anything from the show was worth watching.

  • Gaylactus@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    I used to watch “Late shows” on YouTube, but after the 2nd time Trump got elected, I stopped consuming any political content from the US, and again after the “Liberation Day”, I stopped consuming any US produced media (including YouTube content creators). I just can’t deal with so much “Trump content”, nor do I want to keep to, in any manner, help content that thrives on that.

    I just can’t deal with a second season of “The House of Trump”.

    I’m not implying that this is why it got cancelled, just expressing the reason to why I even stopped watching it, on YouTube. Can’t say if others have done the same or not, but following American politics is… exhausting.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      25 days ago

      Conan is the only one worth watching/listening to. Hardly ever gets into politics.

      Funniest podcast available too imo (well, maybe that or Bonanas for Bonanza)

      • Gaylactus@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I do love Conan. But he only has a podcast now, right? I loved those bits about “Fan Corrections”! LOL

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          25 days ago

          He’s got an amazing travel show on HBO Max, but each season only has a handful of episodes. But other than that, yeah pretty much.

          His podcast is outstanding, and the longer form interviews show how much funnier he is than he could ever be within the format of a late night show.

          They also have a fan segment every week, in addition to the normal episode, where they have a fan on for like 20 min or something

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              25 days ago

              Do it! Every episode is hilarious, but the ones with Martin Short are always hysterical if you wanted a recommendation for where to start…

              If you do like it, I would suggest considering starting from the beginning, as it’s really fucking funny to listen to how his relationship with producer and co-host Matt Gourley has evolved.

              Also, Sona is on it and she’s awesome.

      • Gaylactus@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        My parents already lived through a dictatorship, and I know the struggles that came along with it, including a post-colonial war and being subject to a thought police, that persecuted and prosecuted anyone, just for owning specific books, many of which were not even political. So while I have not lived through it, my parents did, much worse than you, and I was raised in a post-dictatorship regime completely aware of what the previous generation had to go through, thank you very much!

        And has the old saying goes… “Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat itself”, and considering you are on the second Trump term, just after a 4 year hiatus, you guys must have the memory of a gold fish.

        PS - I had a much longer and extensive post originally, but quite honestly, I do not want to enter a debate about this. But what you guys need is though love. In fact I believe that the only way that the US can escape the current political paradigm, is if you go full dictatorship, live under it for a few decades, and finally have a revolution. You are constantly on a situation where you move 1 step ahead, and 2 backwards, shifting between Democrats and Republicans, and with neither having the will to make a meaningful change to the system. I could say much much much more, but I wont, if only because, I no longer have the bandwidth for US politics, as I have already stated!

        Good luck!

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          25 days ago

          “Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat itself”

          This is supposed to be cautionary, but for Republicans, it’s been a game plan.

          • Gaylactus@lemmy.world
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            25 days ago

            Yes, absolutely, and they are right, in the sense that it is a good plan to achieve their goals, along with blocking education to people! Because not only people have a very short memory, but most are ignorant and lack education to make an informed choice that benefits them.

            My fraternal grandmother, even after the dictatorship ended, continued to praise the oppressive regime, until she died, and she was barely literate! And this is one of the reasons to why I believe that US citizens really need to understand what it means to lose their freedoms and liberties. Because at least, those who just have a short memory, will remember more easily… The uneducated ones, or the fundamentalist evangelist zealots… those are a lost cause!

            There are already reports, that the literacy rating is declining in the US, on both adults and children. I think it’s pretty clear what this will lead to… And you know why am so fucking exhausted? Because I also think that the left in the US is responsible for your current situation. If Trump was never elected in 2016, that would have served as a rebuke to Trumpism and to the erosion of political norms… The republicans would continue to be republicans, but not sycophants that enabled their party to turn into a cult!

            And at least from my personal perspective, I went above and beyond to try to convince the Americans friends I had online, to not get complacent! At the time, I ran a website that was dedicated mostly to a gay community, and around 50% of the users were from the US. The site had around 300k users, and I made a post appealing to every American on the site to please go vote, and tried to, with little to no success, convince the guys I was closer to, to please vote on Hillary. I’m not sure I was able to breakthrough, and many of them, sometimes would even reply to me aggressively, that they would never vote for Hillary.

            I’m a progressive… I would have loved to see Bernie get nominated in the primary, but sadly, that didn’t happened… And even Bernie, also ended up endorsing Hillary. And I’m tired of hearing Americans blaming exclusively the Democrats when they, who have the power to vote, decline any responsibility on the matter. Everyone is to be blamed, from top to bottom. So yes… I’m exhausted because the progressive left in the US, is aiming for the Moon, and ends up shooting their own foot, and fuck the rest of the world in the process! Aim lower… AIM LOCAL! I know you guys have that stupid law that parties can only receive funds for campaign if they have at least get 5% of the votes in the preceding election, and above that you have the electoral college. It’s all fucked up! So you either start doing it slowly, and locally first, so you can very slowly put more and more progressives in government, or if you’re waiting to suddenly reach Mars like Elon, you will fail MISERABLY! And now, you are seeing the consequences of that failure.

            Again, I’m sorry for the long long “rant”, but I’ve tried to help as much as I possibly could, and it makes me sad to see this happening, also because, the rise of right-wing all around the world, and specially in Europe, was also propelled by the immense cultural power and reach the US has. Even things we did not used to have like vaccine hesitancy, or crazy conspiracies like “the Moon landing is fake”, have now become part of the daily discourse in here, when this was absolutely never an issue before. The US political propaganda, on the Internet, not only it affected the US, but it has also affected Europe. Brexit was also result of that.

            I hope people understand why it’s also very exhausting to everyone else, even when not being a US citizen. We are suffering the consequences of your (in)actions, and without any power to turn the tide.

            Again, good luck to everyone, we are going to need it!

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
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      24 days ago

      It’s because they want to do the Skydance merger.

      The “financial decision” is “We want money money money money, we’ll do anything! Look! Look! We’ll fuckin’ fire one of our highest rating earners. You like that, Papa T? We did that to make you love us ;)”

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        24 days ago

        kinda wierd people are denying its not because of trump in this thread, multiple subs are already reporting including other talk show host indicated it was a threat-based cancellation. some of the users got mad because nutrek was axed by paramount, eventhough the franchise in its current form is terrible other someone like kurtzman.

  • blattrules@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    26 days ago

    This sucks to see. Hopefully he’ll get picked up somewhere else and go back to a format closer to what the Colbert report used to be.

    • Gates9@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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      25 days ago

      The Colbert Report would be difficult to reformulate due to Colbert’s prominence and the fact that he’s been, ahem…overt…with his political opinions since he gave up the character. As ridiculous as it sounds, a lot of people literally thought he was conservative when he was doing the character both on Daily Show and Colbert Report, which afforded him a lot of opportunity to play it up. I don’t think that would be the case if he went back. Plus, a few critical writers who contributed to segments like “The Word” moved on towards the end of Colbert Report, and I think they were really critical to the quality of the show that “Late Show” never quite mayched…

      …Or maybe he could just dive right back in and it would be awesome. What do I know about show business I’m just some guy.

    • scytale@lemmy.zip
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      26 days ago

      Yeah I didn’t really enjoy prim and proper corporate Colbert. His show was pretty mediocre. I believe it was also his decision to step away from his original persona and move on to a standard talk show host, so he actually wanted that change. Ferguson is still the GOAT for me.

      • boydster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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        26 days ago

        I thought it was because Comedy Central had a claimed trademark or something regarding the character he played, but it’s been a while so I might be misremembering

          • boydster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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            25 days ago

            Irrelevant and refuted by Colbert’s own words, but ok. Viacom quite literally wouldn’t allow it.

            https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/stephen-colbert-colbert-report-character-915236/

            But on Wednesday night’s Late Show, the real Stephen Colbert indicated that Comedy Central’s legal team is barring his old character from appearing on CBS.

            “This is true, immediately after that show, CBS’ top lawyer was contacted by the top lawyer for another company to say that the character Stephen Colbert is their intellectual property,” the real Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday.

            He continued, “So it is with a heavy heart that I announce that thanks to corporate lawyers, the character Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, will never be seen again.”

            The audience began to boo but the Late Show host insisted there was nothing he could do.

            “I feel the same way, but what can I do? The lawyers have spoken. I cannot reasonably argue I own my face or name,” he said. “And as much as I’d like to have that guy on again, I can’t.”

            • ohulancutash@feddit.ukEnglish
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              25 days ago

              That refers to a bit he did with the Colbert character over a year into the run of the show. He has said in various interviews that he chose not to do the Late Show in any character because he felt he’d done that and it would be disrespectful to the franchise.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          25 days ago

          No way CBS would have allowed him to do the show in that character… Maybe a segment every now and then, but not entire episodes. Not on CBS.

          • boydster@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
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            25 days ago

            He quite literally was legally disallowed by Viacom (Comedy Central’ owners). Not CBS, where he told the audience he would love to bring the character back but was not legally allowed to do.

  • 60d@lemmy.caEnglish
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    26 days ago

    Criticized Trump. Had to go or the merger was not going to be approved by Trump’s ass-suckers.