So don't count Colbert out.

18-49 age group was only 219,000 viewers.
Don’t confuse popular late night comedian with popular across America. I give that a big no. He was a comedian whose show was cancelled. His popularity isn’t as great as you think.

Became president.

Colbert has name recognition.

Everyone is upset Trump isn’t qualified. So we turn a comedian that was paid to be divisive. He won’t get elected and he’s not qualified. We can do better.

We are not in the age of Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt, men of letters. We are in the age of competitive entertainment.

And Cosby was another rapist.

We aren't in the age of LIncoln or Teddy Roosevelt or FDR or Kennedy...but we have many, experienced Democrats who are more viable Presidential candidates than Colbert.

I don't know what comes next, but I do think you're underestimating the political value of this situation.

Why keep him on for 10 months?

I'm guessing had the show not been losing $40 million/year, CBS wouldn't have cared what he said about them, or Trump, or anyone else.

I don’t think the cancellation was a demand/condition of the settlement with Trump, as Colbert now has 10 I-don’t-give-a-fuck months to go scorched earth on Trump.

If Trump wanted Colbert off the air as a condition of the settlement, he would have made CBS eat the cost of buying out his contract rather than keeping him on the air for 10 more months.

Now cancelling Colbert as a strategy to help get the merger approved, and to make the merger more attractive to the buyer, that’s possible.

Of course, it could just come down to Sheri Redstone exacting revenge for Colbert’s monologue a few days earlier blasting the settlement as a bribe…

...that they're having to pay for anyway?

That’s my point.

If they were firing him because of the settlement, they could have paid his salary and still saved the other $85 million or so in production costs.

Show costs $100 million/yr (200 employees), loses $40 million/yr.

I don't know the first thing about television production but if they give me $50 million a year, I'll deliver the best production you can get for only $49 million a year.

But I do recall that, by the last season of Friends, each of the six cast members was getting $1 million, each, per episode and that was something like 25 years ago.

I really don't see the value add relative to what a couple teenagers can do with a few thousand dollars of tech these days.

Obviously the show is going to be more expensive than a podcast or a TikTok, but a hundred million more? Yowza.

He has a long-running feud with Donnie and it sure looks like it was a political hit job and that's a good enough back story to launch a political career with.

I'd be more than willing to take a chance on Colbert!

At least we'd know HERE is a guy who knows how to HIT BACK!
Being "qualified" doesn't mean shit,
if you can't win the election.

It’s because the late night show have lost popularity. The show has a high cost star but has limited viewers and not in a popular demographic. He only appeals to half the population with his views and very little population under 50 watch the show.

They will try and find a more neutral program to try and get higher viewership.

Celebrities are not our saviours!

I don’t think Colbert could even beat Lindsay Graham in his home state.

JFC

" Well, about six months out of the year for the last 10 years, I told jokes on TV about our 45th and 47th president for about 15 minutes per night."

I never really enjoyed him on CBS…..I always said, Stephen’s show was always about him, no matter who the guest was, it was always about how Stephen could top the guest. Ugh……absolutely loved him when he was the man, ya know on his Comedy Central show……he gets a real “talking head show” and he was NEVER ANY GOOD AT IT. Oh, and JMHO.

A very great team of talented writers who on a nightly basis got under the skin of the fucking pedophile.

Imagine taking that national and unleashing them on the likes of J.D. Couch Fucker Vance.

That's what average America wants, not policy discussions, but bread and circuses and gladiatorial scrums.

"Are you not entertained! Is this not why you are here?"

Maybe some of them would like to write for a presidential candidate

Let’s stop doing this.

I like Colbert. I don't want him in office.

He's far better than any of the other so-called leaders in this party now.

We've already had that, and it's been a disaster.