The cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been greeted by many on the left with something approaching panic and grief, and by many on the right with something too close to glee. Both reactions are, in their way, overblown. It is a sign of our times that a network’s programming decision, one ostensibly rooted in balance sheets and audience fatigue, is treated as either an act of martyrdom or of vengeance. But as with so much in our cultural discourse, the real story is neither crucifixion nor coup, but something altogether less operatic: capitalism.
Let us begin with what we know. CBS has finally acknowledged what audiences have been telling the networks for years: that the era of late-night television no longer justifies the expense. Ad revenues have collapsed. Viewers have defected to YouTube, podcasts, and the infinite scroll of algorithmic dopamine hits. The traditional talk show, with its canned monologues, blinking “applause” signs, and sycophantic interviews, has become a relic of a media age when audiences waited patiently to be told what they already believed.
So Colbert is out. Not, as some breathless headlines suggest, dragged to the gallows by the Trump administration, but more mundanely, shown the door by his employer in the interest of quarterly returns.
That hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from crying censorship, as if democracy itself had suffered a mortal wound. One might think the man had been waterboarded or banned from publishing. In truth, he has merely been invited to do what any public figure with a loyal following and market value is free to do: compete.
Let the record show that I do not believe Colbert was “canceled” in the modern sense, a word now used so promiscuously that it confuses consequence with repression. Nor do I believe he was the victim of some shadowy MAGA purge. The more plausible explanation is that CBS was hemorrhaging money on an obsolete business model, and that Colbert, despite his talent and his nightly catechism of progressive pieties, was no longer worth the price tag.
And here we arrive at the rub: if Colbert really is the cultural and commercial juggernaut his defenders claim, then he won’t want for opportunities. We live in an age of infinite platforms, each more desperate than the last for relevance. The media landscape is so fragmented that even disgraced pundits and conspiracy theorists can find an audience and a paycheck, some, indeed, larger than ever.
Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News and emerged phoenix-like, with a larger reach than before. The same is true for Megyn Kelly. And we needn’t look far to recall Bill Maher, who was ousted from ABC long before the streaming revolution, only to become wealthier and more influential than ever. This is not the Soviet Union. It is the free market, red in tooth and claw.
It is also not a tragedy. Democracy has not been imperiled. Free speech has not been abridged. Colbert remains at liberty to say whatever he wishes, to whomever will listen. He is a rich man with a loyal fanbase, an established brand, and a Rolodex that includes everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Barack Obama. If he wishes to continue sermonizing each night, he may do so. And if he does it well, he may even profit.
The essential confusion in much of the commentary lies in the conflation of access with entitlement. To lose a television show is not to lose a voice. It is merely to lose a megaphone paid for by someone else. The real test, if one still believes in the meritocratic ideal the left once championed, is whether Colbert can command an audience without the patronage of a legacy media conglomerate.
In all likelihood, he can. He is clever, charismatic, and well-resourced. And if he cannot, that too is information.
So let us spare ourselves the lachrymose laments about “dangerous precedents” and “attacks on truth-tellers.” Let Colbert go forth into the open market and prove, as he surely can, that he is more than a corporate brand. If his wit remains intact and his ideas still resonate, the world will find him. And if not, well, he can always write a memoir about what went wrong. They all do in the end.
You may also be interested in:
