It’s not just Colbert - network late-night TV is dead

NY Post ^ | 7/19/25 | Johnny Oleksinski

[Libloather]

Everybody was shocked — shocked! — when Stephen Colbert announced this week that CBS canceled “The Late Show.”

The despondent media reacted like a meteor was about to smash into Earth.

But how surprising was Colbert’s kibosh really?

Did peoples’ jaws also hit the floor when Blockbuster Video called it quits in 2014?

Were they muffling their screams when blimps were phased out for air travel in 1937?

“What do you mean ‘no more silent films’?!”

The end of “The Late Show” was every bit as writ-in-stone as any of those predictable downfalls.

And it’s not only Colbert. The Grim Reaper is coming for all of late-night TV. Those comedians in neckties are just ignoring Death’s deafening knock.

The retro programs, which began in the 1950s as an experiment to fill time, have far too tiny a viewership to justify their exorbitant cost anymore.

The Post reported Friday that Colbert’s talk show was losing $40 to $50 million per year. The Times watered down those figures to mere “tens of millions.”

Awfully hard to blame Trump for that.

True, “The Late Show” was beating the competition with 2.42 million nightly viewers on average during the first quarter. But just 9% of those eyeballs were in the 18-49 demo that advertisers covet.

That means no ad dollars because young people couldn’t care less.

[Lod881019]

Like his man show days