About a week before Stephen Colbert announced The Late Show’s cancellation, I had “heard” (okay, read) noise that the Paramount merger probably sounded the death knell for Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show, since both tended to be pretty critical of Trump. Less than a week later, the cancellation of The Late Show franchise in its entirety was announced.
People are trying to politicize this. As with many things, I think this is really a distraction and, honestly, on the side of the Democratic Party, just another fund-raising scheme (they seem to live to ask for money while refusing to endorse much of a leadership plan as of yet). I have been text messaged and emailed various petitions to reinstate The Late Show which of course, then ask for your money at the end of the sign-up. I am not impressed.
Here is the thing, though. Stephen Colbert has been given almost a whole year of pretty much no possible penalties for any future criticism of the administration and its directives. He has almost absolute freedom to say and schedule whomever he chooses, because they can’t fire him - they already have. It was an absolutely hilarious triumph when they did the “kiss cam” skit on The Late Show showing Trump caught holding Paramount. CBS can pretty much shrug and say, “Well, we already canceled his contract, what else can we do?”
Better yet - now the merger is approved, so SkyDance Media is probably also stuck with him until the show ends officially in May. Now, whether or not they decide to try to buy out his contract (and whether or not he would accept) or some other workaround remains to be seen, but for now, Stephen Colbert is free to run The Late Show however he wishes (short of illegal speech that would cause an insurrection, or recommending assassination, etc.).
I wish him all the best.
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