The Late Show’s cancellation might have arrived at a suspicious time politically but speaks to an ongoing problem for late-night TV
“I
acknowledge we’re losing money,” comedian Jon Stewart told viewers this week. “Late-night TV is a struggling financial model. We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside a Tower Records.”
The remark did not dull Stewart’s righteous anger about his friend Stephen Colbert’s show being cancelled by CBS after its parent company Paramount settled a lawsuit with Donald Trump – and a week before Paramount’s $8bn merger with Skydance was approved by federal regulators.
Stewart did, however, point to another truth about the decline of a format that has been part of America’s cultural fabric for three-quarters of a century.
