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i'm certain that there's an established upward trend toward digital streaming
it is probably more than just some big box news that are feeling the change
probably an exception or two to that trend
however, advertisers follow the eyes, ears and clicks
what role does content/format play?
online podcasting can be less restrictive
Problem here is that it intensifies are already existing silo/echo chamber problem. Also, there is little/no mechanism for determining the validity of a source or it's integrity.
Ahhh...the old maximizing shareholder value "adage".
Perhaps worse than even our politics...we shall see.
i'm certain that there's an established upward trend toward digital streaming
it is probably more than just some big box news that are feeling the change
probably an exception or two to that trend
however, advertisers follow the eyes, ears and clicks
what role does content/format play?
online podcasting can be less restrictive
Editorâs note: This post was originally published on 8/5/25. It was updated on 8/22/25 to include an addendum on retransmission fees (see bottom of post)
When CBS announced that it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbertafter the 2025â26 season, the decision stunned most industry observers. The Late Show is still the highest-rated program in its time slot, outperforming The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! in total viewers and in the key demos more often than not. To even most insiders, Colbertâs Late Show seemed untouchable.
So why would CBS cancel it?
The timing, of course, is impossible to ignore. Colbert has been a known thorn in the side of Donald Trump, who himself called for Colbertâs termination last fall. And at the time that CBS announced The Late Showâs cancellation, the networkâs parent company, Paramount, was in the final stages of seeking regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance from the Trump-controlled FCC. (That approval was granted a week later.)
CBS, in its announcement, termed its decision to cancel The Late Show as âpurely financial.â Subsequently, insiders at the network leaked that the show was losing moneyâto the tune of $40 million dollars.
We asked a network TV research analyst familiar with the financial realities of late night television from the inside (at networks other than CBS) for their thoughts on whether that number rang true.
Their response was a qualified yes: âI would believe anywhere between $25M-$40M.â
âRevenues have dropped at a pace that far outstrips the speed at which costs can be reduced,â added the analyst, who asked to remain anonymous but shared financial modeling with LateNighter for this story.
Though the analyst is bound by non-disclosure agreements from sharing any proprietary network research data, using blended Nielsen ratings, ad pricing estimates, and reported historical production costs for The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, they built a hypothetical but (based on their experience) realistic model that lays bare the harsh economic realities faced by the average 11:35pm talk show. Their conclusion: 2022 was the last year most (if not all) of the traditional network late-night television shows likely turned a profit.
As for how we got here, the story begins and ends with the decline in linear ratings.
Ratings for the big three 11:30pm network talk shows have dropped sharply since 2015.
According to Nielsen Live+7 data, all three network 11:35pm showsâCBSâs The Late Show, NBCâs The Tonight Show, and ABCâs Jimmy Kimmel Live!âhave seen declines of 70â80% in the key 18â49 demographic since 2015. That year marked the beginning of a new era: Colbert took over from David Letterman, Fallon had just succeeded Jay Leno, and Kimmel had moved up to 11:35pm.
By 2018 the writing was on the wall that the time period that was once a cash cow was in free fall. According to one frequently cited report from the advertising data firm Guideline, brands spent $439 million advertising on network late-night television that year. By 2024, that number had been cut in half.
YouTube views and digital extensions helped fill the void for a time, but they werenât nearly enough to stop the bleeding. âDigital is a band-aid, not a cure,â the analyst explained. âIt helps, but it doesnât scale at the level that network TV would need to backfill for what has become a significant loss of traditional ad revenue.â
Another problem unique to the time period: late-night talk shows have almost no library value. Unlike procedural dramas, sitcoms and even some reality programming, they arenât easily syndicated, streamed, or licensed internationally. âLast yearâs jokes about Mitch McConnell arenât going to be binge-watched in Thailand,â the analyst notes. âYou make it, you air it, and itâs done. Thatâs a very expensive way to run a TV show in the current climate.â
While the production costs of network late-night shows have historically paled in comparison to primetime scripted shows, as audiences and ad revenues have contracted, even those budgets that were once perceived as relatively modest have a largesse thatâs out of step with the economic realities of the time period.
Viewing those costs in the context of shrinking ad revenues, a clear tipping point emerges.
In 2015, the typical 11:30pm talk show brought in well over $200 million in revenue and made a healthy profit. By 2023, the same show was underwater, and by 2025, losses are well into the tens of millions of dollarsâeven with cost controls that have been put into place by most of the major shows in recent years (in aggregate, those cuts have done little to offset the usual salary bumps and other annual cost increases of a long-running show).
By 2023, the average 11:30pm talk show was already losing money.
Looking ahead, the picture looks even more dire.
Ahhh...the old maximizing shareholder value "adage".
Perhaps worse than even our politics...we shall see.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Sep 17, 2025 - 8:13pm
kcar wrote:
+1
+2
rgio articulated very well many of the points I might have made.
Broadening it out, I would add that the fight over whether Robinson is a product of the left or right is a political one, more inflammatory than relevant.
Editorâs note: This post was originally published on 8/5/25. It was updated on 8/22/25 to include an addendum on retransmission fees (see bottom of post)
When CBS announced that it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbertafter the 2025â26 season, the decision stunned most industry observers. The Late Show is still the highest-rated program in its time slot, outperforming The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live! in total viewers and in the key demos more often than not. To even most insiders, Colbertâs Late Show seemed untouchable.
So why would CBS cancel it?
The timing, of course, is impossible to ignore. Colbert has been a known thorn in the side of Donald Trump, who himself called for Colbertâs termination last fall. And at the time that CBS announced The Late Showâs cancellation, the networkâs parent company, Paramount, was in the final stages of seeking regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance from the Trump-controlled FCC. (That approval was granted a week later.)
CBS, in its announcement, termed its decision to cancel The Late Show as âpurely financial.â Subsequently, insiders at the network leaked that the show was losing moneyâto the tune of $40 million dollars.
We asked a network TV research analyst familiar with the financial realities of late night television from the inside (at networks other than CBS) for their thoughts on whether that number rang true.
Their response was a qualified yes: âI would believe anywhere between $25M-$40M.â
âRevenues have dropped at a pace that far outstrips the speed at which costs can be reduced,â added the analyst, who asked to remain anonymous but shared financial modeling with LateNighter for this story.
Though the analyst is bound by non-disclosure agreements from sharing any proprietary network research data, using blended Nielsen ratings, ad pricing estimates, and reported historical production costs for The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, they built a hypothetical but (based on their experience) realistic model that lays bare the harsh economic realities faced by the average 11:35pm talk show. Their conclusion: 2022 was the last year most (if not all) of the traditional network late-night television shows likely turned a profit.
As for how we got here, the story begins and ends with the decline in linear ratings.
Ratings for the big three 11:30pm network talk shows have dropped sharply since 2015.
According to Nielsen Live+7 data, all three network 11:35pm showsâCBSâs The Late Show, NBCâs The Tonight Show, and ABCâs Jimmy Kimmel Live!âhave seen declines of 70â80% in the key 18â49 demographic since 2015. That year marked the beginning of a new era: Colbert took over from David Letterman, Fallon had just succeeded Jay Leno, and Kimmel had moved up to 11:35pm.
By 2018 the writing was on the wall that the time period that was once a cash cow was in free fall. According to one frequently cited report from the advertising data firm Guideline, brands spent $439 million advertising on network late-night television that year. By 2024, that number had been cut in half.
YouTube views and digital extensions helped fill the void for a time, but they werenât nearly enough to stop the bleeding. âDigital is a band-aid, not a cure,â the analyst explained. âIt helps, but it doesnât scale at the level that network TV would need to backfill for what has become a significant loss of traditional ad revenue.â
Another problem unique to the time period: late-night talk shows have almost no library value. Unlike procedural dramas, sitcoms and even some reality programming, they arenât easily syndicated, streamed, or licensed internationally. âLast yearâs jokes about Mitch McConnell arenât going to be binge-watched in Thailand,â the analyst notes. âYou make it, you air it, and itâs done. Thatâs a very expensive way to run a TV show in the current climate.â
While the production costs of network late-night shows have historically paled in comparison to primetime scripted shows, as audiences and ad revenues have contracted, even those budgets that were once perceived as relatively modest have a largesse thatâs out of step with the economic realities of the time period.
Viewing those costs in the context of shrinking ad revenues, a clear tipping point emerges.
In 2015, the typical 11:30pm talk show brought in well over $200 million in revenue and made a healthy profit. By 2023, the same show was underwater, and by 2025, losses are well into the tens of millions of dollarsâeven with cost controls that have been put into place by most of the major shows in recent years (in aggregate, those cuts have done little to offset the usual salary bumps and other annual cost increases of a long-running show).
By 2023, the average 11:30pm talk show was already losing money.
Your simple life must be wonderfully colorful not having to deal with any grey.
There is no doubt he is the product of conservatism. It's what made him such so good with a rifle.
What you want to paint as liberal is the acceptance of trans people. Somehow, the shooter ended up in what was obviously a meaningful relationship with someone whose sexual identity was more complicated than yours. Knowing where he came from, I can only imagine there was a LOT of confusion. Conservative parents... trans boyfriend... yikes.
Enter Charlie Kirk, who attacks and degrades the person you're now in love with. "Trans is a mental delusion". There are "too many transgender Americans". "You're an abomination to God".
This isn't debate, it's pontificating. Charlie made a lot of statements that are just undeniably wrong, and attacked a lot of people in the name of "debate".
Sure, the left accepts that people who want to change sexual identity are still entitled to a bit of respect, but that doesn't mean our shooter turned "radical". He's like tens of millions of American young men... confused, frustrated, angry.
But the right, starting with Trump, looks for leverage, not solutions or reconciliation. Attack, attack, attack!
The left doesn't do that. When Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered, democratic leaders didn't repeatedly blame the radical right....they blamed the shooter and the broader acceptance of political violence.
The fact you can't see the difference is the root cause of limitless problems these days.
What you want to paint as liberal is the acceptance of trans people. Somehow, the shooter ended up in what was obviously a meaningful relationship with someone whose sexual identity was more complicated than yours. Knowing where he came from, I can only imagine there was a LOT of confusion. Conservative parents... trans boyfriend... yikes.
Don't forget the church. More specifically the Mormon church that has very clear guidance for its followers on this topic.
Enter Charlie Kirk, who attacks and degrades the person you're now in love with. "Trans is a mental delusion". There are "too many transgender Americans". "You're an abomination to God".
This isn't debate, it's pontificating. Charlie made a lot of statements that are just undeniably wrong, and attacked a lot of people in the name of "debate".
