CBS cancels Stephen Colbert; definitely Trump bribe for media merger

Photo: Neil Grabowsky via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m sitting here staring at this CNN headline in absolute disbelief. CBS is canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”?

The highest-rated show in late-night television?

Just two weeks after Paramount settled that lawsuit with Trump?

Come on!

I know CBS is spinning this as purely financial: declining ad revenue, the show no longer being profitable, the usual corporate speak.

But the timing is impossible to ignore.

This feels like the latest domino to fall in what’s becoming a disturbing pattern of media companies bending the knee to political pressure.

Watching Colbert’s reaction was heartbreaking. It’s obvious this wasn’t his decision. This was something done to him, to us, to everyone who relied on his voice to cut through the noise with wit and truth at the end of another unprecedented day in America.

What really gets me is how brazen it feels.

Colbert himself called that Paramount settlement a “big fat bribe” on air just days ago, joking that his mustache would protect him from corporate pressure.

The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife. It’s like they waited just long enough after the settlement to make it seem unrelated, but not long enough for anyone to actually believe it.

I keep thinking about Senator Schiff’s words after taping with Colbert, “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

He’s absolutely right.

We do deserve better than this corporate cowardice masquerading as fiscal responsibility.

For over thirty years, “The Late Show” has been a CBS institution. David Letterman built something special in that Ed Sullivan Theater, and Colbert carried that torch with intelligence, humor, and genuine moral clarity.

To see it snuffed out like this, especially now, when we need voices of dissent more than ever, feels like losing something essential.

I can’t help but wonder what conversations happened behind closed doors at Paramount.

What promises were made?

What threats were implied?

The fact that this decision comes so soon after that settlement, combined with the ongoing Skydance merger, paints a picture that’s hard to ignore.

This isn’t just about Stephen Colbert or even late-night television. This is about the slow but steady erosion of independent voices in media, the corporate calculation that staying in Trump’s good graces is worth more than journalistic integrity or even basic entertainment value.

It’s chilling, and it should worry all of us. Even if you’re a Republican!

When the most popular show in late-night gets canceled for being too critical of power, we’re in dangerous territory.

Tonight, I’m not just mourning the end of a great show. I’m mourning what feels like another piece of our democratic discourse being sacrificed on the altar of corporate convenience.