Why is the Democratic Celebration so livid about Stephen Colbert’s cancelation? That’s a query I’ve been asking myself all week, ever since we discovered that the late-night host is dropping his present, after CBS determined that $40 million in losses each year is just too excessive a value to pay.
This actually shouldn’t come as a lot of a shock to folks: It’s exhausting on the market for big conventional tv organizations. They now face all types of competitors from streaming and social media, from impartial people who find themselves, in some instances, quite a bit funnier than Stephen Colbert and may do what late-night hosts do for a fraction of the fee. I say there’s extra enjoyable available on YouTube, on TikTok, on Substack, on X and elsewhere. That’s how increasingly individuals are getting their leisure and their information — and late night time goes to should catch up. It simply doesn’t have the identical relevancy, or pack the identical punch.
So finally, this was fairly clearly a enterprise choice. However strive telling them that.
Colbert is actually performing like that is Donald Trump’s fault — isn’t the whole lot. Actually, he lately swore at Trump on air, and Jon Stewart went further, singing a whole profanity-laden music about how a lot he hates Trump. I gained’t play the clip, as a result of my very affected person producers are getting sick of getting to bleep each video I’ve requested this week, between this and Hunter Biden.
Now look — even Keith Olbermann, maybe probably the most relentlessly partisan, anti-Trump, anti-Republican mainstream progressive commentator on the planet, thinks this was in all probability only a enterprise choice.
He wrote on X: “In the event that they fired him to appease Trump, why are they letting him stay on the air as a lame duck, with no person to cease him saying no matter he needs, for the subsequent TEN MONTHS? They might have timed it to make use of it as a sop to Trump however that is like Phil Donahue getting cancelled.”
Donahue being one other former commentator, one I fairly appreciated, who was finally put out to pasture for enterprise causes. When Keith Olbermann is offering you a much-needed sanity verify, you have to be very, very afraid.
Finally, I don’t actually blame the opposite late-night hosts — Stewart, Kimmel, Fallon, and so on. — for exhibiting business solidarity with Colbert. However why are Democratic politicians additionally so upset concerning the cancelation?
And belief me, they’re livid. Rep. Ted Lieu is definitely circulating a petition telling CBS not to cancel Colbert. Doesn’t he have extra necessary issues to do, presumably on behalf of his constituents?
Sen. Bernie Sanders weighed in as well. Bernie writes on X: “CBS’s billionaire homeowners pay Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit whereas attempting to promote the community to Skydance. Stephen Colbert, a unprecedented expertise and the preferred late night time host, slams the deal. Days later, he is fired. Do I believe it is a coincidence? NO.”
Once more, he has no proof in any respect that this was something apart from a enterprise choice. The present was an enormous cash loser! I do know Bernie isn’t an enormous fan of capitalism, however typically, while you’re dropping tons of cash, the enterprise pivots. Maybe underneath democratic socialism, we’d have backed horrible political comedy?
And naturally Sen. Elizabeth Warren is equally outraged. Significantly, she won’t stop tweeting about this.
Does anybody assume for a minute that varied Democratic politicians can be livid if a conservative information channel canceled a conservative present? Or even when a present just like the one you’re watching proper now, “Rising,” received axed? We communicate to views everywhere. I doubt it could matter to most Democratic officers, besides possibly to some mates of this system who’ve loved being interviewed right here.
No, the rationale the tip of Colbert is so infuriating is as a result of the Democratic Celebration likes the content material: And the content material of Colbert was reliably anti-Trump. It simply wasn’t very humorous.
Robbie Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary present “Rising” and a senior editor for Purpose Journal. This column is an edited transcription of his each day commentary.