Enjoyed this piece and it feels spot on. What I find lazy is how many people and institutions (including our federal govt) are now able to blame all the troubles on the orange man, instead of digging deep into the conditions that they created which set the ground for the troubles in the first place.
Painting Colbert as a victim is laughable. People lose their jobs every day, dust themselves up and get back on the horse. Colbert will be just fine.
However, painting the current admin as authoritarian (which one may or may not agree with), without making the same claim of the previous admin (which had plenty of authoritarian policies) is a bit rich. Plenty of people had their careers destroyed and were canceled because they didn't toe the party line, or worse, refused to lie.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, Ms. Gerson.
I think it can be reasonably argued that the people who were censored, lost their jobs, or were passed over for promotion during the peak Social Justice years of 2012-2022 suffered because the company’s *own management* felt that that was the right business decision. Usually to avoid revolt from within their own ranks by younger staff, or because the customer base was demanding it. Of course they’re now reversing those decisions, but I don’t think companies were directly coerced by an authoritarian President to “go woke”.
I can’t remember companies ever so blatantly kowtowing to the Obama or Biden administrations on this stuff in such a transactional way as with Trump’s approval of mergers or persecution of law firms.
Just ask the myriad of medical professionals who had their careers ruined and sometimes even life threatened for daring to question the COVID policies.
They have mostly been memory holed and their sacrifice quietly swept under the rug, but they're out there. And it's not just one. Dozens, if not hundreds. Kevin Bass is one such name that comes to mind.
You’re not understanding what I’m saying. I AGREE that many people had their careers and lives turned upside down for going against the overwhelming wave of pressure to conform in 2016-2022 or so.
But (for example), for employees and managers who were fired for not doing Land Acknowledgements or for refusing to implement racial quotas — their careers were ruined by **their own company’s management**, not by an authoritarian President.
These are not the same thing! I get that you’re pissed that every company “went woke”, but I hate to tell you, all those CEOs did it because they felt at the time that it was the right business decision, not because Joe Biden told them that if they didn’t he’d cancel their merger.
You made the point yourself below. How is that different if Biden ensured forced compliance through more covert means, like legal threats of investigations (and I would bet many even more covert tactics that we don't know about), vs. trump using the merger as a leverage to get what he wants publicly (which as the boss of the head of the regulating agency, is his prerogative - we may not like it, but regulators have a lot of leeway in what they choose to enforce).
I would rather see someone doing it Trump's way, out in the open, than the opposite, where everybody is seemingly playing nice, but threat are uttered behind closed doors.
Which is more "authoritarian" the overt or the covert?
Because there wasn’t much covert pressure. You’re speculating or conspiracizing: “I would bet many even more covert tactics that we don't know about”.
The Biden DOJ civil rights investigations were not that much of a factor. Companies could avoid that by pretty thin lip service to racial equity.
I think lots of people including you just don’t want to admit that company management just really did give into the overwhelming pressure — mainly online via Twitter — to be seen to be doing something about Social Justice and Covid reduction and everything else. It wasn’t government coercion, it was all of society.
Almost every "conspiracy" of the last few years has turned out to be real, so there isn't much "conspiracizing" going on here.
The democrats have put out every hoax they could possibly conjure up and lied about everything, from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to the "fine people" hoax.
The burden of proof isn't on me to demonstrate those lies, but for you to show me that the admin did not in fact influence one way or another the destruction of so many careers.
Stephen Colbert with his $12m/year salary is not a victim. If he were really a sacrificial offering to DJT CBS would have given him a cardboard box for his personal effects and sent him on the walk of shame. As it stands he has almost a year remaining on his platform and a well earned case of short timer's disease. He can send fire in any direction he chooses without worrying about the outcome. Let him go on a retirement tour where he says the things that may have been self censored, publicly mull over the things he regrets saying or not saying. Can you imagine if The Line Editor fired Jen but left her on the platform for the next year? 🔥
OOOOhhhh you just gave me a good laugh. that would really be something ! He would end up rehiring her just to put a lid on it. And the lid could be only partial in any case.
I don't pay enought attention to this stuff, but wondering how much time was left on Colbert's contract? Would terminating him now result in a $12m payout for him & contract pay-outs for other staff members? And CBS would have to scramble to find something to put in that timeslot. The year gives them time to figure out what to air in the timeslot and it's paying people they'd likely have to pay anyway.
And you're right, he can now pretty much say whatever he wants to for the next year. Long enough for the Skydance sale to go through? And once the sale goes thru maybe CBS 'changes their mind' on the cancellation?
What happened to Colbert is indeed acceptable, no need to hedge and a great piece of writing. What company should continue to produce a show that has massive losses and politicized, unfunny content?
Jen, your opening to this piece on the differences between writing and gabbing concisely covered what I have been intending to comment on. I have been a long time subscriber, but with the increasing reliance on podcasts I am reconsidering. I have time to read what I consider good writing. I don’t have time to listen to ‘gabbing’ for an hour or an hour and a half. Maybe if I still commuted I could listen to lengthy podcasts; however, I still prefer sharp writing to gabbing. Writing as you point out takes time and discipline while gabbing is like meeting a friend in Starbucks and solving all of the world’s problems. Please don’t fall any further down the podcast rabbit hole.
We hear this from time to time, Allen, but for what it's worth, it's wrong. We've INCREASED our written article output. We are on a more relaxed summer publication schedule now, but in normal times, the addition of our second podcast was offset by an additional weekly news article. During some periods, with high news pacing, we add two articles. We're publishing more written content than ever!
For what it's worth Allen, I'm going to try to increase my own written content output on this platform going forward. If you're not into podcasts, totally fine. My husband is the same way. JG
I will accept that as I don’t keep stats. It has seemed to me that on many occasions there is a topic I am interested in and it is covered during a podcast that I don’t have time to listen to; whereas, I read almost every article in my feeble attempts to stay informed.
The problem is that every damn substack author now wants me to spend 20, 40, 90 minutes watching a video. Who has the time? I'm not a shut-in and dammit, it's summer! In their haste to give me my 7 bucks worth, they flood my inbox with comments on everything and anything, and their verbosity as the cherry on top.
I know, I know, it's my own fault. Too many subscriptions, too many interests, too many Blue Jays games to take in. Modern life is killin' me.
Totally agree with this: I am violently opposed to pushing critical voices out of platforms in order to appease authoritarian leaders. If Colbert was fired in order to smooth the way for presidential approval of a major media merger, count me in the Strongly Against category
I get the temptation for some to say, this is just the other side of the “private corporations caving to woke hysteria” coin so, “eat it, leftists”. However, there is an enormous difference between corporations bending in the direction of where they sense the cultural winds are blowing (whether correct or not in that assessment, cough, Bud Light, cough) and private corporations bending to the will of someone in government with actual power and of whom they are afraid.
But perhaps the most interesting part of this story to me is the fact that the show is going to continue for another year. That would seem to fly in the face of both of the reasons being put forth for the cancellation. If CBS is cancelling the show because they are losing $40 million a year, why are they willing to lose another $40 million before actually cancelling it? And if it’s being cancelled because CBS is trying to earn favour with Trump, why are they allowing the show to stay on the air for another year, particularly since the incentive for Colbert to now go even harder after Trump on CBS airwaves could not possibly be any higher?
I made this point in a reply above but you made it first and better.
Very different story when the company’s own management wants to enforce Social Justice (whether that was mistaken or not) vs when they’re doing it out of fear of being unjustly denied a merger or worse.
I guess the counter-argument is that Biden just enforced things more subtly, via the threat of a Department of Justice civil rights investigation if a company wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic about racial equity or whatever. I still don’t think that rises to the level of the authoritarianism Trump is showing day to day.
Thank you for clarifying your position. Your closing six paragraphs are the pièce de résistance of your entire thesis, and are a cautionary tale beyond the USA. Bravo for refining your podcast comments, which were fine, but you are bang-on that the written word allows for more precision.
Canada is at least as far as the USA along this dark path, and may even be ahead of them - our Canadian institutions from federal to provincial to municipal governments, courts at all levels, RCMP / provincial / city police, military, subsidised plutocratic large businesses & industries such as media / telecoms, airlines, dairy, construction, and shipbuilding (just to name a few) have for decades failed to 'understand and uphold their own mandates' and in agonizing slow motion have 'set the scene for their own eventual anihilation'.
Or, as The Line used to note 'Canada is broken'.
On bad days, I despair.
On good days, I hope that from the ashes of these diseased and/or dying Canadian institutions, small businesses like The Line (and many others across the country) and motivated individual Canadians can rebuild and/or invent new institutions that will grow & prosper our country.
Let's hope the Americans figure this out too, or it won't matter much what we do in Canada.
Yepp. The grip of the Laurentians on the political power must be permanently broken. They sit at the back of the canoe with a deathgrip on the steering paddle, all glassy eyed hissing 'we are they only ones who may govern this country' while mindlessly setting conditions for parts of Canada to become parts of US just for their own economic survival.
This isn't the first time that corporate media have based decisions on political liability. In 1969, CBS CEO and President William Paley cancelled the hugely popular The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour over its vocal opposition to the Vietnam war. And in 2002, ABC cancelled Bill Mahar's Politically Incorrect after Mahar said that the Al Quaeda terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Centre were braver than the Americans who press buttons and destroy targets remotely.
And while I personally still find Colbert and other left late-night hosts funny, it's absolutely true that they've lost their credibility as fearless court jesters by flattering the prejudices of progressive audiences. (I also agree that Stewart is better than most, now that he's back on The Daily Show; but he was similarly dishonest during his "woke critical theory" phase on the Problem with Jon Stewart; see his gotcha 'interview' with Andrew Sullivan.)
Love the rant, love the essay to follow. Respectfully I do think you were actually victim blaming as you mention. Moments after he was fired for speaking out in the creepiest and most authoritarian leadership in a hundred years in North America you first blame him for 15 minutes and scarcely mention the obvious censorship. This is more Trump. The decline of the show and the genre was far far secondary, or the worlds most amazing coincidence.
Pretty nice severance…$21 million salary..and a year to do his show and plan next steps..as noted by another commenter..not the cardboard box and shown the door you would think from all the wailing
I always thought of “Late Shows” as a sort of eastern Boomer thing. First of all because they stay up later than Westerners who start work earlier and second because Boomers. Because I try not to watch American TV and am a modern urban hipster I only ever saw Colbert on YouTube so shall not miss him
The whole point of talk shows is they're supposed to be cheap programming. Carson accounted for something like 30% of NBC's profits in his peak.
The fact that CBS is cancelling the show entirely, not just looking for a replacement host, tells me that CBS doesn't see a profitable path forward with the format. They already ditched The Late Late Show two years ago.
And if it was a bending-to-Trump decision, why give it another 10 months on air? Probably cheaper to let the contract play out rather than a buyout. (And, cynically, maybe see if the publicity gains some extra eyeballs for the advertisers.)
I haven't watched Colbert in years but I know you nailed it on two giant issues - the silent and deadly creep of corruption and the importance of not only knowing but checking in frequently with your raison d'etre. Brings to mind Matt's piece of yesterday in which he talked about the government not really wanting to increase the size of our military but rather to make it rain in Liberal constituencies by throwing money at economic development projects like shipbuilding.
Huge etre issue there even though I don't entirely agree with the analysis. Yes the government was unsuccessful in trying to kill two birds with one stone. Losing sight of the goal may have arose over time as it does when difficulties pile up. One of your best Jen. Left me smiling.
The underlying trend has been that broadcast/cable TV is a dying business with a shrinking audience. That's been obvious for decades, though perhaps not to the aging audience still conditioned to watch TV. If politics was ultimately what caused cancellation of the Late Show on CBS, it had the same relationship as a badly rusted car's suspension breaking when it hit a pothole. The suspension could've handled the pothole had it not already been rusted; if not for the pothole, the suspension was eventually going to rust to the point where it broke anyway. There's a similar corrosion or rot at the core of American politics and the American electorate, as a healthy democracy wouldn't tolerate Trump's corruption.
"... Even if the reports of $40 million losses are true, in an ordinary, healthy democratic capitalist society, it would not be so unusual to keep a high-profile individual in an institutional role for reasons that went beyond mere profit.... "
Well, Jen, if The Line was losing $40 million a year on a project - hell, let's make that $40,000 a year - how long would The Line continue to subsidize that project? I'm guessing that the answer is not very long.
So, two questions for you before I take your comment seriously, Ma'am:
- Assuming that the stated loss figure is correct, how long has CBS been losing that much and would that change your comment?
- It has been reported that Colbert earns $15 million per year; perhaps he should offer to work for a measly $250,000 per year so that CBS loses "only" $25 million a year. Why should he earn $15 million when his employer loses $40 million?
The truth is that CBS and it's parent has an obligation to it's shareholders to not lose money. Sorry, Jen, I just don't see your argument.
One final comment. My wife periodically turns to Colbert and I (sometimes) watch the closed captions. I have pretty much ignored Colbert for a few years; as I said to my wife, unlike the other late night hosts who are (sometimes, just sometimes) funny, I found Colbert to frequently not at all be funny but to very frequently just be mean.
Enjoyed this piece and it feels spot on. What I find lazy is how many people and institutions (including our federal govt) are now able to blame all the troubles on the orange man, instead of digging deep into the conditions that they created which set the ground for the troubles in the first place.
Painting Colbert as a victim is laughable. People lose their jobs every day, dust themselves up and get back on the horse. Colbert will be just fine.
However, painting the current admin as authoritarian (which one may or may not agree with), without making the same claim of the previous admin (which had plenty of authoritarian policies) is a bit rich. Plenty of people had their careers destroyed and were canceled because they didn't toe the party line, or worse, refused to lie.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander, Ms. Gerson.
I think it can be reasonably argued that the people who were censored, lost their jobs, or were passed over for promotion during the peak Social Justice years of 2012-2022 suffered because the company’s *own management* felt that that was the right business decision. Usually to avoid revolt from within their own ranks by younger staff, or because the customer base was demanding it. Of course they’re now reversing those decisions, but I don’t think companies were directly coerced by an authoritarian President to “go woke”.
I can’t remember companies ever so blatantly kowtowing to the Obama or Biden administrations on this stuff in such a transactional way as with Trump’s approval of mergers or persecution of law firms.
It really is a different situation now.
Just ask the myriad of medical professionals who had their careers ruined and sometimes even life threatened for daring to question the COVID policies.
They have mostly been memory holed and their sacrifice quietly swept under the rug, but they're out there. And it's not just one. Dozens, if not hundreds. Kevin Bass is one such name that comes to mind.
You’re not understanding what I’m saying. I AGREE that many people had their careers and lives turned upside down for going against the overwhelming wave of pressure to conform in 2016-2022 or so.
But (for example), for employees and managers who were fired for not doing Land Acknowledgements or for refusing to implement racial quotas — their careers were ruined by **their own company’s management**, not by an authoritarian President.
These are not the same thing! I get that you’re pissed that every company “went woke”, but I hate to tell you, all those CEOs did it because they felt at the time that it was the right business decision, not because Joe Biden told them that if they didn’t he’d cancel their merger.
You made the point yourself below. How is that different if Biden ensured forced compliance through more covert means, like legal threats of investigations (and I would bet many even more covert tactics that we don't know about), vs. trump using the merger as a leverage to get what he wants publicly (which as the boss of the head of the regulating agency, is his prerogative - we may not like it, but regulators have a lot of leeway in what they choose to enforce).
I would rather see someone doing it Trump's way, out in the open, than the opposite, where everybody is seemingly playing nice, but threat are uttered behind closed doors.
Which is more "authoritarian" the overt or the covert?
Because there wasn’t much covert pressure. You’re speculating or conspiracizing: “I would bet many even more covert tactics that we don't know about”.
The Biden DOJ civil rights investigations were not that much of a factor. Companies could avoid that by pretty thin lip service to racial equity.
I think lots of people including you just don’t want to admit that company management just really did give into the overwhelming pressure — mainly online via Twitter — to be seen to be doing something about Social Justice and Covid reduction and everything else. It wasn’t government coercion, it was all of society.
Almost every "conspiracy" of the last few years has turned out to be real, so there isn't much "conspiracizing" going on here.
The democrats have put out every hoax they could possibly conjure up and lied about everything, from "2 weeks to flatten the curve" to the "fine people" hoax.
The burden of proof isn't on me to demonstrate those lies, but for you to show me that the admin did not in fact influence one way or another the destruction of so many careers.
Agreed!
Stephen Colbert with his $12m/year salary is not a victim. If he were really a sacrificial offering to DJT CBS would have given him a cardboard box for his personal effects and sent him on the walk of shame. As it stands he has almost a year remaining on his platform and a well earned case of short timer's disease. He can send fire in any direction he chooses without worrying about the outcome. Let him go on a retirement tour where he says the things that may have been self censored, publicly mull over the things he regrets saying or not saying. Can you imagine if The Line Editor fired Jen but left her on the platform for the next year? 🔥
I'd be there for it.
OOOOhhhh you just gave me a good laugh. that would really be something ! He would end up rehiring her just to put a lid on it. And the lid could be only partial in any case.
I don't pay enought attention to this stuff, but wondering how much time was left on Colbert's contract? Would terminating him now result in a $12m payout for him & contract pay-outs for other staff members? And CBS would have to scramble to find something to put in that timeslot. The year gives them time to figure out what to air in the timeslot and it's paying people they'd likely have to pay anyway.
And you're right, he can now pretty much say whatever he wants to for the next year. Long enough for the Skydance sale to go through? And once the sale goes thru maybe CBS 'changes their mind' on the cancellation?
What happened to Colbert is indeed acceptable, no need to hedge and a great piece of writing. What company should continue to produce a show that has massive losses and politicized, unfunny content?
Jen, your opening to this piece on the differences between writing and gabbing concisely covered what I have been intending to comment on. I have been a long time subscriber, but with the increasing reliance on podcasts I am reconsidering. I have time to read what I consider good writing. I don’t have time to listen to ‘gabbing’ for an hour or an hour and a half. Maybe if I still commuted I could listen to lengthy podcasts; however, I still prefer sharp writing to gabbing. Writing as you point out takes time and discipline while gabbing is like meeting a friend in Starbucks and solving all of the world’s problems. Please don’t fall any further down the podcast rabbit hole.
We hear this from time to time, Allen, but for what it's worth, it's wrong. We've INCREASED our written article output. We are on a more relaxed summer publication schedule now, but in normal times, the addition of our second podcast was offset by an additional weekly news article. During some periods, with high news pacing, we add two articles. We're publishing more written content than ever!
For what it's worth Allen, I'm going to try to increase my own written content output on this platform going forward. If you're not into podcasts, totally fine. My husband is the same way. JG
I will accept that as I don’t keep stats. It has seemed to me that on many occasions there is a topic I am interested in and it is covered during a podcast that I don’t have time to listen to; whereas, I read almost every article in my feeble attempts to stay informed.
The problem is that every damn substack author now wants me to spend 20, 40, 90 minutes watching a video. Who has the time? I'm not a shut-in and dammit, it's summer! In their haste to give me my 7 bucks worth, they flood my inbox with comments on everything and anything, and their verbosity as the cherry on top.
I know, I know, it's my own fault. Too many subscriptions, too many interests, too many Blue Jays games to take in. Modern life is killin' me.
You said exactly how I feel about podcasts.
I prefer podcasts 'cuz I use my eyeballs too much as it is. So there is that for some of us. I will easily live with any mix The Line come up with.
Totally agree with this: I am violently opposed to pushing critical voices out of platforms in order to appease authoritarian leaders. If Colbert was fired in order to smooth the way for presidential approval of a major media merger, count me in the Strongly Against category
I get the temptation for some to say, this is just the other side of the “private corporations caving to woke hysteria” coin so, “eat it, leftists”. However, there is an enormous difference between corporations bending in the direction of where they sense the cultural winds are blowing (whether correct or not in that assessment, cough, Bud Light, cough) and private corporations bending to the will of someone in government with actual power and of whom they are afraid.
But perhaps the most interesting part of this story to me is the fact that the show is going to continue for another year. That would seem to fly in the face of both of the reasons being put forth for the cancellation. If CBS is cancelling the show because they are losing $40 million a year, why are they willing to lose another $40 million before actually cancelling it? And if it’s being cancelled because CBS is trying to earn favour with Trump, why are they allowing the show to stay on the air for another year, particularly since the incentive for Colbert to now go even harder after Trump on CBS airwaves could not possibly be any higher?
I made this point in a reply above but you made it first and better.
Very different story when the company’s own management wants to enforce Social Justice (whether that was mistaken or not) vs when they’re doing it out of fear of being unjustly denied a merger or worse.
I guess the counter-argument is that Biden just enforced things more subtly, via the threat of a Department of Justice civil rights investigation if a company wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic about racial equity or whatever. I still don’t think that rises to the level of the authoritarianism Trump is showing day to day.
Thank you for clarifying your position. Your closing six paragraphs are the pièce de résistance of your entire thesis, and are a cautionary tale beyond the USA. Bravo for refining your podcast comments, which were fine, but you are bang-on that the written word allows for more precision.
Canada is at least as far as the USA along this dark path, and may even be ahead of them - our Canadian institutions from federal to provincial to municipal governments, courts at all levels, RCMP / provincial / city police, military, subsidised plutocratic large businesses & industries such as media / telecoms, airlines, dairy, construction, and shipbuilding (just to name a few) have for decades failed to 'understand and uphold their own mandates' and in agonizing slow motion have 'set the scene for their own eventual anihilation'.
Or, as The Line used to note 'Canada is broken'.
On bad days, I despair.
On good days, I hope that from the ashes of these diseased and/or dying Canadian institutions, small businesses like The Line (and many others across the country) and motivated individual Canadians can rebuild and/or invent new institutions that will grow & prosper our country.
Let's hope the Americans figure this out too, or it won't matter much what we do in Canada.
Yepp. The grip of the Laurentians on the political power must be permanently broken. They sit at the back of the canoe with a deathgrip on the steering paddle, all glassy eyed hissing 'we are they only ones who may govern this country' while mindlessly setting conditions for parts of Canada to become parts of US just for their own economic survival.
This is entirely correct on both counts.
This isn't the first time that corporate media have based decisions on political liability. In 1969, CBS CEO and President William Paley cancelled the hugely popular The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour over its vocal opposition to the Vietnam war. And in 2002, ABC cancelled Bill Mahar's Politically Incorrect after Mahar said that the Al Quaeda terrorists who crashed planes into the World Trade Centre were braver than the Americans who press buttons and destroy targets remotely.
And while I personally still find Colbert and other left late-night hosts funny, it's absolutely true that they've lost their credibility as fearless court jesters by flattering the prejudices of progressive audiences. (I also agree that Stewart is better than most, now that he's back on The Daily Show; but he was similarly dishonest during his "woke critical theory" phase on the Problem with Jon Stewart; see his gotcha 'interview' with Andrew Sullivan.)
My 91 year old mum is still mad about the Smothers Brothers.
Love the rant, love the essay to follow. Respectfully I do think you were actually victim blaming as you mention. Moments after he was fired for speaking out in the creepiest and most authoritarian leadership in a hundred years in North America you first blame him for 15 minutes and scarcely mention the obvious censorship. This is more Trump. The decline of the show and the genre was far far secondary, or the worlds most amazing coincidence.
Yeah, hence my follow up. JG
Pretty nice severance…$21 million salary..and a year to do his show and plan next steps..as noted by another commenter..not the cardboard box and shown the door you would think from all the wailing
I always thought of “Late Shows” as a sort of eastern Boomer thing. First of all because they stay up later than Westerners who start work earlier and second because Boomers. Because I try not to watch American TV and am a modern urban hipster I only ever saw Colbert on YouTube so shall not miss him
The whole point of talk shows is they're supposed to be cheap programming. Carson accounted for something like 30% of NBC's profits in his peak.
The fact that CBS is cancelling the show entirely, not just looking for a replacement host, tells me that CBS doesn't see a profitable path forward with the format. They already ditched The Late Late Show two years ago.
And if it was a bending-to-Trump decision, why give it another 10 months on air? Probably cheaper to let the contract play out rather than a buyout. (And, cynically, maybe see if the publicity gains some extra eyeballs for the advertisers.)
I haven't watched Colbert in years but I know you nailed it on two giant issues - the silent and deadly creep of corruption and the importance of not only knowing but checking in frequently with your raison d'etre. Brings to mind Matt's piece of yesterday in which he talked about the government not really wanting to increase the size of our military but rather to make it rain in Liberal constituencies by throwing money at economic development projects like shipbuilding.
Huge etre issue there even though I don't entirely agree with the analysis. Yes the government was unsuccessful in trying to kill two birds with one stone. Losing sight of the goal may have arose over time as it does when difficulties pile up. One of your best Jen. Left me smiling.
The underlying trend has been that broadcast/cable TV is a dying business with a shrinking audience. That's been obvious for decades, though perhaps not to the aging audience still conditioned to watch TV. If politics was ultimately what caused cancellation of the Late Show on CBS, it had the same relationship as a badly rusted car's suspension breaking when it hit a pothole. The suspension could've handled the pothole had it not already been rusted; if not for the pothole, the suspension was eventually going to rust to the point where it broke anyway. There's a similar corrosion or rot at the core of American politics and the American electorate, as a healthy democracy wouldn't tolerate Trump's corruption.
Excellent take, thank you. And we have a version of that shyte here with the "Liberals".
Great analysis. The speed with which the USA is falling into authoritarianism is absolutely depressing.
"... Even if the reports of $40 million losses are true, in an ordinary, healthy democratic capitalist society, it would not be so unusual to keep a high-profile individual in an institutional role for reasons that went beyond mere profit.... "
Well, Jen, if The Line was losing $40 million a year on a project - hell, let's make that $40,000 a year - how long would The Line continue to subsidize that project? I'm guessing that the answer is not very long.
So, two questions for you before I take your comment seriously, Ma'am:
- Assuming that the stated loss figure is correct, how long has CBS been losing that much and would that change your comment?
- It has been reported that Colbert earns $15 million per year; perhaps he should offer to work for a measly $250,000 per year so that CBS loses "only" $25 million a year. Why should he earn $15 million when his employer loses $40 million?
The truth is that CBS and it's parent has an obligation to it's shareholders to not lose money. Sorry, Jen, I just don't see your argument.
One final comment. My wife periodically turns to Colbert and I (sometimes) watch the closed captions. I have pretty much ignored Colbert for a few years; as I said to my wife, unlike the other late night hosts who are (sometimes, just sometimes) funny, I found Colbert to frequently not at all be funny but to very frequently just be mean.