CBS is now admitting what Donald Trump has been saying about Stephen Colbert.
After Colbert aired his final episode of The Late Show, CBS issued a statement revealing the show was losing roughly $40 million a year. The number had been widely reported before, but now the network is putting it out there itself.
Trump had already blasted Colbert after the cancellation, calling him “untalented,” “not funny,” and “very poorly rated.” He also said Colbert’s firing was the “Beginning of the End” for late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and others.
CBS just handed him the receipt.
CBS Says The Late Show Was Losing $40 Million A Year
According to CBS, The Late Show’s old time slot has gone from losing around $40 million annually to generating $15 million in profit under the new deal with Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed.
A CBS spokesperson told TheWrap the network shifted “an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit,” calling it a “$55 million swing.”
In other words, CBS is no longer spending big money – and losing – on Colbert, his large staff, writers, production costs, and political monologues.
Instead, Byron Allen is leasing the late-night slot, producing Comics Unleashed himself, and selling the advertising directly.
For CBS, it’s no longer a loss. It’s found money.
Paramount Let Colbert Bleed Cash Before The Sale
The bigger question is why Paramount let this go on for so long.
Before Skydance bought Paramount, the company was apparently letting CBS air Colbert while The Late Show was losing around $40 million a year. CBS is now saying the replacement deal turns the same hour into profit.
Trump wasn’t just talking trash. He was right.
CBS is now confirming the basic point Trump made all along: Colbert’s show was not some untouchable late-night success story. It was an expensive political vanity project bleeding tens of millions of dollars a year.
Colbert may have played well with anti-Trump viewers, Hollywood, and the media class, but the business side tells a different story. CBS kept the show going at a massive loss, and once the numbers could no longer be ignored, Colbert was gone. There was no viewership to justify the cost.
Trump called it. CBS just proved it.
Trump Gets The Last Laugh
Trump has been hammering Colbert since the cancellation, including that AI viral video of Trump throwing Colbert in the trash.
In one post, Trump wrote that Colbert was “finally finished at CBS,” adding, “No talent, no ratings, no life.” He also called him a “total jerk” and said, “Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
In another post, Trump said Colbert’s firing was the “Beginning of the End” for “untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Night Television Hosts.”
Now CBS is saying the show was losing around $40 million a year.
Colbert spent years making Trump the punchline. Now Trump is pointing to the balance sheet.
