Paramount, Inc. decided to pull the plug on Stephen Colbert's late-night TV show, which was losing $40-50 million a year, and the left's conspiracy machine went into high gear.
The left saw Colbert as a Trump nemesis, skewering the president night after night in unfunny monologues and hosting guests whose claim to fame was being opposed to Donald Trump. For normal viewers, the constant anti-Trump caterwauling got to be tiresome and eventually, uncomfortable.
But the real reason Colbert was canceled was the changing landscape of late-night television. Pre-COVID, the genre was a profit leader for networks largely because the primary audience for the late-night talk format was the 18-35 demographic. Once the streaming revolution began in earnest after COVID, the first viewers to leave cable and satellite were from the same demographic.
Colbert's show wasn't a victim of government censorship or even its anti-Trump viewpoint. Simple economics spelled the end of Colbert.
But the Writers Guild won't accept that. As typical left-wingers, they think that Paramount dropping $50 million a year is nothing as long as someone is rattling Trump's cage on a nightly basis.
Unfortunately for them, publicly traded companies can't afford to be radical left-wing activists all the time, so Colbert was given his walking papers.
The Writers Guild sees a conspiracy in Colbert's cancellation.
“Cancellations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society," the Guild said in a statement.
"Bad faith"? The damn show was bleeding ad revenue and viewers. Unless the Guild can read the minds of network executives and see the Colbert cancelation as something else, they should take a chill pill and sit down.
The Writers Guild of America calls on New York State Attorney General Letitia James, no stranger to prosecuting Trump for illegal business practices, to join California and launch an investigation into potential wrongdoing at Paramount. We call on our elected leaders to hold those responsible to account, to demand answers about why this beloved program was canceled and to assure the public that Colbert and his writers were not censored due to their views or the whims of the President.
A "beloved program"? Sheesh.
In fact, the Guild is sniffing the wrong conspiracy. Paramount is deep in merger talks with Skydance Media and has a proposed $8 billion deal waiting for approval from the FCC. The recent settlement of a lawsuit filed by Trump against "60 Minutes" for $16 million is thought by some analysts to have cleared the way for the FCC to approve the merger.
Is the Colbert firing related to the merger? That's what the left is alleging, and yes, it's as nutty as it sounds.
Paramount claims that the “lawsuit is completely separate from, and unrelated to, the Skydance transaction and the FCC approval process.” Mr. Ellison met last week at Washington with Mr. Carr. Skydance issued a statement that the two “discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”
Senator Warren amplified Mr. Colbert’s assessment that the settlement amounts to a bribe and linked it to the fate of the show, writing on X that “CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery.”
The deal appears to be a corporation attempting to eliminate a troublesome lawsuit that has been generating negative press. The merger had nothing to do with the lawsuit or the settlement. Using Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is usually correct), is it more likely that Paramount was engaged in some sort of conspiratorial shenanigans to move the merger along, or was it simply a matter of media economics?
Letitia James has her own problems with the law, apparently submitting false mortgage documents. But she's already engaged in one witch hunt against Trump so it wouldn't be surprising if she started another.
Editor's Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump's agenda to make America great again.
Help us hold these corrupt judges accountable for their unconstitutional rulings. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member