“The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert was canceled in the wake of a merger between Paramount, who owns CBS, and the company SkyDance. The merger faced huge opposition from the Trump administration’s FCC, and the show itself has faced massive amounts of criticism from Trump directly.
The show was not the first at CBS to be affected by the policies, and general wrath of this administration. The editor of CBS News 60 Minutes Bill Owens resigned as a result of what he saw as diminished independence due to mounting pressure from Paramount executives.
“It’s clear the company is done with me,” Owens said, according to the New York Times.
Donald Trump had sued Paramount and CBS over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that aired just before the 2024 presidential election. Trump demanded $10 billion from CBS after claiming that the “60 Minutes” had caused severe damages to his election prospects, even though he won the election. The litigation was settled out of court for $16 million just after the merger was approved by the FCC.
CBS is choosing the wrong path. CBS claims that their cancellation of “The Late Show” to be a financial one, but that doesn’t line up with the numbers.
“The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert is the most popular late night show on the air. It makes little sense that the show would be canceled for financial reasons like the network has claimed.
This cancellation speaks to a wider issue at CBS around censorship. It didn’t start with Colbert or Owens, but they won’t be the last victims of this new campaign.
When signing one of these hosts the network must acknowledge it will not be able to control everything that they might say on the air. It is also not the network’s job to police what is said or thought by the host or their staff.
Much like the editors of a newspaper though, the network does not have the right to control what its hosts say or opine on the air. The network however does have a business interest in making sure that the hosts do not say anything illegal or defamatory, just like the editors of a newspaper.
Assuming the speech does not meet that high bar, they have no right to intervene on what is said. Media, whether it be published or presented, must remain independent of their publishers.
The news must remain separate from their corporate parents and late night shows must remain separate from the whims of a network’s business gurus.
If networks don’t allow the people they employ to share their views, opinions or the news they gather, what is the point of tuning in or spending our time and attention on their properties?
CBS is in a downward spiral. They can fix it, but they need to take a deep look in the mirror and determine what kind of enterprise they want to be going into in the future.
