Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Cancellation and the Fall of CBS
There was a time when getting a show on network television meant you had conquered the mountain. You weren’t just famous. You were institution-famous. Suit-and-tie executives in glass towers had approved your existence. Advertisers trusted you to sell pickup trucks and blood pressure medication. Your face appeared between sitcom reruns and pharmaceutical disclaimers delivered at machine-gun speed by people who sounded emotionally held hostage. And now? Now one of the last remaining symbols of late-night television gets canceled and the reaction from the public is basically the digital equivalent of someone looking up from their phone long enough to say, “Oh wow. Anyway.” That’s the story nobody at CBS wants to admit. The cancellation of Stephen Colbert isn’t just about ratings. It isn’t just about politics. It isn’t even just about money. It’s about the slow public execution of the old media empire itself. The network didn’t merely cancel a host. It canceled the illusion that thes...
