The death of late night appointment TV (07-21-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. NPR and Stephen Colbert both on the same day. Okay, I am not here to celebrate people losing their jobs. I have lost jobs before and it stinks, you know, especially when you don't see it coming. I don't know if Colbert Colbert saw it coming or not. He claimed the other day when he made the announcement in front of his studio audience, that he had just been informed that they would be a CBS would be canceling the show, the entire show next year, which is what a fascist would do, right. That's how you know free speech is being fascist fascistically suppressed. So you'd give him ten more months on the air. Now, this is a this is a problem that late night TV is having as a I guess is I don't want to say an industry, but yeah, I mean kind of as a as a niche product. Right, That's how I viewed the story, and I suspect you're going to start seeing the other franchises fall two. Although you know, just the other day we were talking about how Jamie Harrison, the former DNC chairman, how he was being held up as like the next Joe Rogan because he launched to podcast and Democrats think he's going to be their new Joe Rogan, which, by the way, you guys had Joe Rogan, but then you like pushed him out of your party over the COVID shots and the horse paste. He's eating horse paste and all that. So now maybe Stephen Colb I see, I don't like calling him Colbert because that's not I don't think that's how you pronounce his last name. He like his whole stick was a mockery of Bill O'Reilly, right, he was playing a blow hard conservative host when he did the Colbert Report. I think it's Colbert, right. But anyway, and it turns out being a blow hard leftist on late night did not sell very well. It doesn't detract the eyeballs. And that's really the problem here. Colbert was drawing a rating share of two two point zero. That means of all the people that are watching television at any given moment, he's drawing two percent of all the eyeballs for that time slot. Okay, And as it was pointed out by observers, shall we say he was somewhere in the neighborhood of about two hundred thousand in the eighteen to forty nine year old demographic. And that's the one that all the ad agencies look to buy because for some reason they think twenty year olds have a lot of disposable income. I don't understand it. This is what Madison Avenue still prizes. They want these these young, the young audience for some reason, even though they don't really have any money. They're yeah, and they're not watching late night TV, as is evidenced in his two hundred thousand eyeballs in the in that demographic that's called the key demo eighteen to forty nine. And by comparison, you're mid level YouTubers are getting somewhere like triple that number, right, So that's those are the economic challenges, the ratings challenges that that time slot has it starts at eleven thirty at night. I don't watch TV. Look full disclosure here, I've never been one that watched the late night shows. I remember it was something to get the when I would come in to work here at WBT, when I was in the newsroom back there, and we were at the time a CBS affiliate, and we would get Dave Letterman's top ten list. We would get the audio of his top ten list, and it was funny and that's why we got it. And maybe if there was a couple of soundbites from the show, but that was about it. And do you know why they started. I came across this little nugget over the last couple of days while reading a lot of the stories about, you know, the late night programming challenges. Do you know why this slot was developed? The idea was that if you could have people tune in to watch the network, you know, ABC or NBC or CBS. If they would tune in and watch that show at eleven thirty at night, chances are they're falling asleep while they're watching it, which means what they turned you know, they wake up at some point, turn the television off, and then what they wake up the next morning, turn the TV on, and the channel is still on the same channel, the dials still set to because that was back in the day where you actually had to like turn the knob, you had to actually get up out of a seat or your bed. You'd have to walk over to the television and you would have to turn a dial to pick up one of the three stations, Okay, yes, or PBS, but like that was those were your options, right, And so the idea was, if you set it to CBS and you're watching that late night and then you fall asleep, when you wake up the next day, it's still on CBS, and now you're more likely to just keep watching the morning show. That's the idea. This gets into like lead in effects, right where when you had Oprah Winfrey on on ABC and she was the ratings powerhouse that she was, the newscasts that would air right after her show, the local newscasts, they were like number one in all markets. Because they had this huge lead in, people just would keep watching. They'd just leave the channel on ABC. So, this from Brian Steinberg over at Variety Magazine. TV's ongoing problems with late night have come for Stephen Colbert, with CBS announcing Thursday that it plans to end his Late Show after the next TV season, citing a financial decision. The maneuver, which ends years of original late night programming at CBS that started when the network lured David Letterman from NBC back in nineteen ninety three, comes as the economics of wee hours TV have begun to accelerate, with media companies growing wary of the high price tags involved in producing the shows, while the young viewers they try to attract watch more of them via digital video. When I read the numbers about what it takes to produce the Late Show or Late Night with Stephen Colbert, the Late Show, Yeah, sorry, the Late Show, I see, that's what I mean. I don't even know what all of them is. It's Jimmy Kimmel Live, that's his show. Then there's the Tonight Show, right is that a separate one, and then there's the Late Show I think anyway, But the numbers, as in the amount of staff employed to put on this show and the amount of money that Colbert was making and the amounted costs, it's staggering. It's absolutely staggering. I mean that's like it. When I read the numbers, I was like, what are you guys, PBS over here? That's my goodness. CBS put out a statement saying we consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire the Late Show franchise in May of twenty twenty six. We are proud that Stephen colled CBS home He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. This is purely a financial decision against the challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance. Well I mean it. It's related to the show's performance if it was, because if it was making money, if it was performing well, then you would have kept him on the air. See that's how that works. When you're bringing in the money, then you get way more latitude to do stuff. But when you're costing the parent company for fifty million dollars a year, well, the bosses don't take too kindly to you attacking their ethics and your accusations that you're paying Trump a big fat bribe, which is what Democrats want to make this all about. But here's the thing. Even if that's why they fired him, which I see no proof that that is why they fired him. The the economics of it, the financials, tell the whole story. You can't lose forty to fifty million dollars every single year on a product like this and see fewer and fewer audience, like just a shrinking audience and exploding debt. You can't. It's unsustainable. But even if it were true, you still you don't get to insult the boss's ethics and probably keep your job. It's just that's just me, all right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago, and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check Dot Ground, Dot News slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Variety magazine reports on the cancelation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that CBS had already begun winding down its activity in the late night slots. It's no secret among staffers and executives associated with Late Night that the business of the format has been in decline. Young people are the very consumers jumping first to new streaming behaviors that are less tied to watching programs at a specific time and date. This is called appointment listening or appointment viewing. And we don't do it. We just don't do it anymore. Like aside from live sporting events, we don't make appointments to watch stuff, right, We don't say, oh, I got to clear my calendar. Every Thursday night, I gotta watch Seinfeld. You know which people used to do. They would call it that appointment TV or must see TV, and you had to tune in and because if you didn't see it when it happened live, then you had to wait till the summer when they would do the reruns. So people aren't making appointments at eleven thirty and twelve o'clock at night anymore to watch this stuff, let alone any kind of programming like this. People watch on demand. Right. We want to watch what we want when we want to on our schedule, and then if you're like me, you binge watch an entire season, staying up for like sixteen straight hours. Right. Hosts like Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert continue to generate headlines in digital memes and still build sizable live audiences that the networks and their distributors and advertisers cove it, but less so and the ranks of the hosts have narrowed in recent years. So to have episodes of the shows I wasn't aware of this, Get this. None of the regular hosts hold forth on Fridays anymore. Falance Tonight Show was the last to give up the fifth night of the week. Some of these guys work like three days and they record an extra episode for like Thursday or something. But I wasn't even aware of that. It's like, Colbert is getting paid fifteen million dollars a year, and well he was. He has like fifteen to twenty million a year and he doesn't even work five days a week, which is nuts. I mean, that's like a deal that I negotiated. I do need to find out who his agent is. By the way, while Variety says Colbert will next year wind up a colorful run, when he took over the Late Show in twenty fifteen, he had to navigate a new role. He was no longer the bloviating conservative character he portrayed on Comedy Central. Instead, he became a bloviating left wing character. Not kidding. They didn't say that, but I did. He had to instead find ways to be his authentic self, and when we found out who that was, people tuned out. By the way, when he took over, the audience was four million people, and now it's two million. In seven years, he has seen his audience declined by half. But get this, Colbert turned a corner in twenty sixteen when he hosted an election night special on Showtime and he had to entertain a live New York crowd that stared in disbelief at results showing that Donald Trump would triumph over Hillary Clinton. Look, I have to tell you, I was not aware that he did this. That would have been hilarious, because that night, when Hillary lost, it was hilarious. I was anchoring the coverage for the station up in Asheville at the time, and I just remember laughing at one point, just busted out laughing when the Pennsylvania returns came in because this guy that nobody thought would win ended up doing so. And I can only imagine what that must have been like for Colbert in New York City while they're all there to celebrate Hillary's win and she loses. And this is when he turned a corner. Colbert found his footing that night and decided to lean heavily into pointed humor about current events now beating up on Republicans and Trump, right, And that's what his whole show was for the last seven eight years. That's all it was. And you can't just beat up on half of the potential audience and expect to be successful unless you're me. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local attractions, with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memory that'll last a lifetime. Johnny Oleksinski, writing at The New York Post, the grim Reaper is coming for all of late night TV. Those comedians and neckties are just ignoring deaths deafening knock. The retro programs, which began in the nineteen fifties as an experiment to fill time, have far too tiny a viewership to justify their exorbitant cost anymore. The Late show was beating its competition, so that's pretty amazing. This was apparently the highest rated of the lowly rated shows beginning after the local newscasts. It had two point four to two million nightly viewers on average during the first quarter, but just nine percent of those eyeballs were in the key demo of eighteen to forty nine years old that the advertisers covet. That means no ad dollars because young people could not care less, and why would they They've got YouTube TikTok to scroll through after dark. The funniest story of the week by a mile was the astronomer CEO. That's the name of a company astronomer. He's not an astronomer as I understand it. This guy Andy Byron who got caught on the JumboTron kiss cam canoodling with his head of HR at a Coldplay concert, which, by the way, if they had just acted like a normal couple then nobody would have noticed, nothing would have come of it. But the fact that they were obviously busted and behaved as if they got busted, then everybody that turned it into the moment. So anyway, fifteen years ago, Americans would have turned to David Letterman and Conan O'Brien to mock the horny half wits. But now social media does it faster and funnier than Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers Ever could I will say I've said this many times over the years. It's one of the things that I do love about social media is the creativity and sense of humor that so many people have. When you know something like that story occurs and the hot takes that people have. I mean, yes, there's a bunch that are terrible, but there are some that are outright hilarious, like the one with they've swapped out instead of this canoodling couple, they've swapped him out with the cartoon from King of the Hill, John Redcorn and Dale Dribble's wife. I don't remember her name, because like that was the running joke on that cartoon spoiler alert, was that Redcorn was having this long standing affair with Dale Dribble's wife and Dale was completely oblivious to it the entire time. And so yeah, like people doing memes and things like that have been very, very funny, and like the democratization of comedy and reaction to these kinds of things. It's on social media. You can find it yourself. So back to the New York Post story. You could shake up the format all you want, but a fixed eleven thirty PM show with commercial breaks on a dusty, old, censored network can't compete with instant razor. Sharp reactions from billions of people could chats with a list stars keep the struggling shows afloat no the five minute skim the surface interview is a thing of the past as well. Celebrities are way over exposed, and promotional appearances present them at their fakeused and their leak least likable as well, which is a great point. I don't ever care about a guest that's going to be on the one of these shows. They go on there for five minutes, six minutes or something. They talk about some story that was obviously given to the host. Sometimes it's like explo ilicitly said, oh, yeah, you were talking earlier before the show about this thing. Tell us about that, you know, just some ham handed lead in to tell this story that the star thought would show them in a good light, or they thought would be hilarious or whatever. They give them a couple ideas and the host throws one of them out and then they tell their story and ah, ha is that hilarious. It's just it's not real. And I've talked about this too with these long form podcast formats, which is that you sit somebody down for an hour or two hours or three hours, and you can't keep up whatever facade you have erected. You can't keep that up for the entirety of the two hour conversation. You just can't do it. Even the most skilled politicians can't do it. You break, you can't stay in character, you can't tap dance away from every single question over two to three hours. Now, Democrats are not taking any of this very well. Charles C. W. Cook from The National Review. He points out how at root, the NPR story and the Colbert cancelation are basically the same story. Progressives take over a product. They made it so that people didn't want to pay for it, whether via advertising, subscriptions, or donations, and now they're upset that it won't be perpetually bailed out by a third party. I've talked about this too for years, which is the wolf in sheep's clothing. They progressives or Marxists. They get into any institution, right, and in order to take it over, what must they do? They have to kill the institution. They have to kill the sheep in order to wear its skin. Right, So they kill the sheep, they hollow it out. They then wear its skin and then walk around and demand you respect it as if it were the thing it is pretending to be right. The credibility and the goodwill that was built up over time, over decades, they demand that be conveyed to them, even though they're not producing and they are not the same thing that led to all of the goodwill and the loyalty and the audience. You know. Stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. Preserve your stories with Creative Video started in nineteen ninety seven and Minhill, North Carolina. It was the first company to provide this valuable service, converting images, photos and videos into high quality produced slide shows, videos and albums. The trusted, talented and dedicated team at Creative Video will go over all of the details with you to create a perfect project. Satisfaction guaranteed. Drop them off in person or mail them. They'll be ready in a week or two. Memorial videos for your loved ones, videos for rehearsal, dinners, weddings, graduations, Christmas, family vacations, birthdays, or just your family stories all told through images. That's what your photos and videos are. They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come. Who you are, visit Creative video dot com. This text from a seven oh four number interesting that Stephen Colbert has lost half his audience while the country is split almost fifty to fifty on Trump. It's no coincidence. Yeah, it's just the numbers are not good, Like for example, John Hassen at The Spectator. He writes for town Hall as well. He points out that when Colbert took over for David Letterman in twenty fifteen, the average viewer was sixty years old. CBS had hoped that bringing Colbert over from Comedy Central, right where he was on The Daily Show and then had his own show, The Cold their rapport, They had hoped that he would attract younger viewers. Ten years later, his average viewer is older. His audience has gotten older. They are now sixty eight years old. And that's just not sustainable as a business model. It's just not This is from Fox News, but also quotes heavily from a Puck News piece by Matt Beloney, who reported the Late Night Show has been losing more than forty million dollars a year for CBS, and it had a budget of more than one hundred million dollars per season, contrasting it with network's daytime and primetime programming, which he noted were still profitable a hundred million a year. Baloney said the sources, that's his name. It's b E. L l O Ni. But it sounds like baloney. But it's Belloney, okay, he said the sources he spoke with at CBS and Skydance Media, which is the company that is set to buy CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, as part of an eight billion dollar merger. They insist Colbert's cancelation was based on economics, not politics, pointing to the decision to give his show a ten month extension through May of twenty six instead of pulling the plug immediately. And by the way, there were quotes from people even anonymously inside CBS that work on the show, and they've all said the same thing. This wasn't in any kind of response to Colbert's commentary. It wasn't political, it wasn't about the content. It was just economics. But like the left does not believe this. They're like Trump is killing the show off. They're doing it in order to get their merger approved. In all of this, and they've said even anonymously, when you would think they would be free to say the real reason was. But they're not saying that to other people with deep ties to CBS and the Late Show. Suspect otherwise, when a network decides that a show is too expensive, executives typically go to the key talent and ask them to take pay cuts and to fire people and slash costs. But that didn't happen here though. With Colbert said to be making between fifteen to twenty million a year, a pay cut would not have solved the problem on its own. No, no, it would not. Think about it. He's making fifteen to twenty million. They're losing forty million dollars. What are you going to do? Cut his pay in half? That still doesn't get you anywhere close to closing the gap. It is an unsustainable business model. Beloney asked whether this was the dam bursting in late night on broadcast television, suggesting Kimmel at ABC and Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers at NBC could be next. I suspect that is true. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.