CBS maintains that the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was solely motivated by the late-night show’s high costs and scant profits. Others have criticized the move as an apparent gift to President Donald Trump, who is in a position to make or break Paramount’s multibillion dollar merger with Skydance Media.
And neither possibility is an especially good look for the network.
Kowtowing to an aspiring fascist who doesn’t like it when comedians hurt his feelings is obviously bad, but so is fumbling the network’s only surviving late-night institution. Colbert aside, The Late Show has been a part of the network since 1993, when David Letterman bailed on NBC to take on Jay Leno in the 11:30 slot.
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Obviously late-night TV isn’t what it once was, but for one of CBS’ core brands to end in an embarrassing public clusterfuck seems like a pretty big L for the network, to be honest. But in retrospect, it’s hardly the first time that they’ve screwed up their late-night programming.
Long before The Late Show premiered, the network’s first attempt at a talk show for night owls was a repackaged version of the syndicated The Merv Griffin Show, back in 1969. “The Columbia Broadcasting System has decided to compete with the other two major networks in the lucrative field of late-night, talk-variety shows,” The New York Times reported, noting that Griffin would be in competition with “the National Broadcasting Company’s long-established Tonight Show, which stars Johnny Carson, and the American Broadcasting Company’s Joey Bishop Show.”
Taking on Carson may have been a doomed endeavor regardless, but even after paying Griffin double Carson’s salary, the network antagonized the host with overly strict censorship policies, which included cutting performances by The Supremes and blacking out Abbie Hoffman’s American flag shirt. They eventually fired Griffin after just three years.
In 1989, CBS entered the late-night wars once again with The Pat Sajak Show, a “clone” of The Tonight Show that lasted for a mere 18 months. The show was such a dud that CBS began openly auditioning replacements for Sajak with weekly guest hosts, including comedy bigotry legend Rush Limbaugh. It didn’t go well.
While CBS eventually premiered The Late Show with David Letterman, which lasted for 23 seasons, they first wanted Leno to follow in Sajak’s footsteps. According to The Late Shift by Bill Carter, it was CBS’ aggressive interest in Leno that allowed his reps to finally get Carson out of the way, using the high-priced offer from NBC’s rival as a bargaining chip to speed up the Tonight Show host’s retirement announcement. CBS found success with Letterman, but that clearly wasn’t their original plan.
Now it seems as though they’re getting out of the late-night talk show business altogether, and will presumably just air whichever NCIS spin-off is least offensive to the president.
