Jimmy Kimmel Blasts Reports of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Losing $40 Million for CBS: ‘Not a Snowball’s Chance in Hell That’s Accurate’

I don't understand, the only way it could lose 40 million is if it cost that to make, no? Colbert's salary is 15 million according to the first number I saw after a search. I don't see 25 million's worth in that show. So how can it "lose" that?

Or is it a case of "we projected 100 million in advertising but only got 60, still making a profit, but 40 less than we said"?

"We could have had the next Game of Thrones doing 200 episodes a year at 11:30pm every weeknight and made approximately a million billion gajillion dollars - anything less is a loss."
CBS's tax accounting team, probably.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-colbert-got-canceled
Still, The Late Show has long carried a headcount of more than 200 employees. Many of them are likely quite long-tenured, protected by unions or by office politics. My experience with ABC News suggests that most of them are dedicated and highly skilled professionals, but some are also coasting, and the pay scale might not have much to do with their contribution to the bottom line. It’s not hard to imagine that they’re making an average of something like $250K per year per person, counting benefit packages, which are often generous at the big media brands.
Take 200 x $250K … that’s $50 million. On top of that, Colbert was reportedly making between $15 and $20 million a year. If Paramount was then allocating some costs to the Late Show for a dedicated studio on a prime block in Midtown, equipment for a show with a pristine production values, plus travel and accommodation for guests — considerably nicer, in my experience, than for your typical late-afternoon TV hit — you could easily approach the nine figures.
- Wow, I had no idea that kind of head count was necessary to produce something like that.
Other people on the show earn a salary as well, they might pay guests a participation fee, and there's also opportunity cost to consider if an alternative show has a potential to generate higher (ad-)revenue.
Still sounds unlikely.
- There are other costs to running the show, but opportunity cost is not "losing 40 million".
- I don’t think GAAP includes opportunity costs 🤔

If Colbert loses CBS $40M per year, it must have lost CBS $40M last year too. Yet CBS didn't fire him last year.

CBS must have terrible accountants, because clearly Colbert's cancellation has nothing to do whatsoever with a certain overweight orange baboon in DC...

Colbert lost 10% of his audience in Q1 2024, so losses were mounting. There is less of a business case for late night.
CBS didn’t fire Colbert this year either. They decided not to renew his contract, which ends at the end the 2025/6 season. If they’d fired him, there would likely be large penalty clauses involved. What they did do earlier was decide not to fill the post-Colbert slot when their previous show ended, signalling a general move away from late-night.
- CBS didn’t fire Colbert this year either. They decided not to renew his contract, which ends at the end the 2025/6 season. If they’d fired him, there would likely be large penalty clauses involved.
  That's nitpicking. They decided they didn't want him to work for them anymore, thus they fired him. Just because you couch it in different terms doesn't make it any less true. Them doing it at a slightly less inconvenient time for them doesn't mean it was any less of a firing.
- There is less of a business case for late night.
  There's been an across-the-board decline in advertisement spending nationally. A lot of media is effectively operating as a loss-leader for the tech sector, which is why you see so many dogshit Op-Eds and bizarre headline beats pumping MAG7 and their affiliates in the face of huge economic headwinds.
  What they did do earlier was decide not to fill the post-Colbert slot when their previous show ended, signalling a general move away from late-night.
  There's some speculation that they purchased South Park with the intention of filling the Late Night slot with a much cheaper form of animated comedy. In some sense, its two-birds and one-stone. Get rid of an expensive live action comedy performance to appease the dictator's FCC Chairman. Then line up a show so far over-the-top critical of Trump that you can't reasonably be accused of pro-Trump bias, but that doesn't go live until after the mid-terms.
  Play both ends against the middle. Then slop-ify your network with AI generated Skydance action movies for the MAGA folks and discount dipshit fart-comedy for the apathetic liberals.

There's a famous phrase called "Hollywood Accounting". It's a creative approach to accounting, in order to make a profitable business venture (i.e. movies) look like a loss. Traditionally, this has been used to reduce taxes and dodge contractual obligations, as some were paid a percentage of profits.

Generally, it means shuffling the money around. CBS lost $40m, to make another business unit (in a tax-advantaged location) a ton of money.

Doesnt quite work for broadcast TV where the income from advertising on a show is roughly known by observers, as is roughly the budget.
- yeah, you’ve got this one wrong tho. both film and tv do some wackadoodle shit with the monies.
  i work in the industry and have both seen it and have been expected to participate in it.
  it’s straight up money fuckery that doesn’t make sense unless you have the waaaay zoomed out view.
- Counterpoint: LotR trilogy, where we know pretty much everything about the production and income (a lot of income), somehow mysteriously stays unprofitable to this day.
- They could still charge ridiculous fees for the studio, licensing the name or any number of different things.
- Doesn't change the point I was making. If the producers want to make it look like it's losing money, they absolutely can.

I mean, you have to include the payoff to Trump, the lawyer's fees, losses from the merger corruptly delayed by Trump throwing a hissy fit, etc. I imagine all that kind of stuff fills in much of the gap between whatever the show actually loses if anything and $40M.

the merger with SKYDANCE owner, who is a TRUMPER too.

are they still holding on to nutrek, to offset the loss. they need to let a proper showrunner for nutrek.