Late night in the wasteland

If integrity were ever to regain a foothold, so that decisions were made exactly for the stated reasons and not as products of ulterior political calculation, we could conclude that something must have gone awry with the proclivities of government and corporate America, because it was not what we had expected.

That's clearly true of Big Media.

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” was canceled last month. The last show will be in May, and he will not be replaced. Colbert claims he got one day's notice.

Paramount, the parent company of CBS, insists it was a "purely financial decision," and rhapsodically poo-poos the notion that the axing was retaliation for Colbert's relentless, rancorous and tart mocking of President Trump. Some people surmise that Colbert's act was wearing thin even on his boosters and Colbert's swiping at his own bosses double sealed his fate.

The dice had already been cast by sensational circumstances.

Paramount stressed that Colbert's performance and his show's content were not factors in their "agonizing" decree, and their meticulously crafted press release gushed with "admiration, affection, and respect" for his talents.

Was Paramount doing Trump's bidding? What could be their motive for ingratiating themselves with the president by silencing Colbert? 

It's because they knew that he could push the kibosh on Paramount's pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.

Paramount was totally within its rights to decapitate Colbert as a blood sacrifice to the presidential ego and market forces. And Colbert, on the chopping block, had some choice words for both his bosses and their shot-calling puppeteers in the shadows.

Just before official notice, though likely after the decision had likely already been made, Colbert had accused his employer of paying a "big fat bribe" to keep their Skydance deal afloat. He said he was "offended," and that he knew of nothing that "will repair my trust in this company."

Rank may have its privileges, but there's a limit. We peons know not to cross those boundaries in our workplaces.

Colbert was justified in rebuking Paramount, but it's not surprising that it didn't sit well with them, and their right to terminate him, whether or not ill-considered, was not compromised by the exercise of his free speech rights.

Was his indignation a pose or a principled outcry? What bribe was he referring to?

Trump had sued CBS and was awarded a $16 million settlement because of their "60 Minutes" broadcast in which their time-honored investigative reporting was tainted by highly partisan editorial manipulation. They had done a surgical patch-up job, doctoring beyond recognition, a potentially ruinous audio clip of former presidential candidate and rival Kamala Harris.

No American, regardless of affiliation, should condone it. Their journalistic activism could have swayed the election.

For nine straight seasons, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” has had the highest viewership in late night television. Dominating the ratings didn't mean much in a field of competition  that was already puny relative to other media. Colbert's show carries over 200 employees and he himself makes an eye-popping $15 million, which is not bad for the voice of Everyman and the foil of elitists.

His advertising revenue is said to have plummeted to half of what it was seven years ago, and some insiders have said the show is hemorrhaging $50 million annually. Colbert's wit doesn't have the currency to offset such a handicap. 

According to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the demise of Colbert's show will cause collateral damage to hundreds of vendors and production staff for whom loss of livelihood is anything but collateral. Local commercial establishments, already jittery about the future of the city, will go bust. Hochul noted that CBS was gifted $16 million in grants and tax breaks from the state, as well as $5 million to spruce up the Ed Sullivan Theater, with the understanding Colbert's show would stay in New York.

Two senators, Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren, and the Writers Guild of America are incensed by the Colbert wacking, and demand an inquiry into a presumptive conspiracy. Regardless of where it leads, Paramount's decision to sack Colbert, and whatever may have inspired or goaded it, is out of their hands.

Perhaps Colbert made his own bed,  but definitely market forces are making him lie in it. His anti-Trump, Johnny One-Note shtick had lost much of its luster even among his fans. He was not in the same class as genre predecessors like Jack Paar, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Dick Cavett or Dave Letterman, whom he succeeded.

Further on the Cancellation Front:

Congress has defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS), which was, if not the cornerstone, at least a significant supporting pillar of President Johnson's "Great Society" legislation in 1967. He likened it to America's "first telegraph line." 

The slashed $1.1 billion that would have been shared by around 1,500 affiliated radio and television stations over two years, will not be redirected or otherwise absorbed. It was a casualty less of economics, than the "culture wars" we have become habituated to waging.

Conservatives have long nurtured a monomania about what they see as the unmitigated and never repentant progressive bias of NPR and PBS in every area from political and news analysis to natural history to children's entertainment.

Slate Magazine notes that federal dollars amount to only 15 percent of PBS's budget and 2 percent of NPR’s, and they "earn ample revenue from corporate sponsorships, viewer donations and special endowments." 

The crux of the government's action is more ideology-aversion than thrift embrace.

Apologists of CPB hail its core mission of presenting balanced viewpoints, which was fulfilled during the Jurassic era of public broadcasting of William F. Buckley Jr., but you'd have to be unscrupulously naive to keep a poker face and maintain that there is equal time now. 

Many people who are applauding the extinction of federal subsidies claim, probably disingenuously, that they are not opposed to its existence, but just to the taxpayers' throwing it a lifeline. They note that billions of dollars have been harvested by Sesame Street and other CPB franchises, even though obviously they would be hostile to a government bailout, even if CPB were bankrupt.

Listeners of public broadcasting are familiar with these stations' frequent fundraiser drives, all of which seem to meet their goals at the last minute. There's one West Coast outlet that has insisted they are at the end of their tether and will take their last gasp and be defunct and off the air by sunset.

They've been doing this since the 1960s, and their service has been uninterrupted.

When Colbert pulls up the last cactus in the desert of late-night television next May, will we have to watch classic cartoons, old flicks, vintage cowboy shows and archived variety and quiz programs? Will we be startled to discover that the void was never emptier than when it was filled with mediocrity?