Colbert Schadenfreude At The MRC
The Media Research Center cheered the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late-night show -- but it lashed out at those who pointed out it came right after CBS paid millions to Donald Trump.
The Media Research Center has always despised Stephen Colbert. It was jealous of his accomplishments as he wound down his faux-conservative “Colbert Report” character to replace David Letterman on CBS, fact-checked and remains a prime target of comedy cop Alex Christy. It even cheered the arrest of Colbert staffers inside the Capitol in 2022, building it into a Capitol riot-esque conspiracy — but it wouldn’t tell its readers that that the staffers were never charged with anything because they did nothing illegal.
That anger at the existence of Colbert has never stopped. Christy spent a July 15 post not liking Stephen Colbert’s take on Paramount’s bribe-y settlement with Donald Trump:
CBS’s Stephen Colbert returned from two weeks of vacation on Monday, sporting a new mustache and attacking his Paramount bosses for giving President Trump a “big, fat bribe” for settling his 60 Minutes lawsuit. The Late Show host would also continue his faux heroics by suggesting Skydance might pressure or even fire him if their merger with Paramount is approved.
Colbert began his phony shtick where he played the role of the little employee standing up to his corporate overlords by declaring, “And tonight, ladies and gentlemen, my mustache comes to you with a heavy heart because while I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his 60 Minutes lawsuit.”
He further decried the settlement “for a nuisance lawsuit Trump filed claiming that 60 Minutes deceptively edited their interview with then-candidate Kamala Harris last fall. Paramount knows they could have easily fought it because in their own words, ‘the lawsuit was completely without merit.’”
Of course, 60 Minutes did deceptively edit the interview, but nevertheless Colbert added, “Now, unlike the payoffs from ABC and Twitter, Paramount’s settlement did not include an apology. Instead—that’s good. Instead the corporation released a statement where they said, ‘You may take our money, but you will never take our dignity. You may, however, purchase our dignity for the low, low price of $16 million. We need the cash.’”
As ConWebWatch has documented, the interview was not deceptively edited — it fell withing standard TV practice, something the MRC refuses to admit. Christy then complained — but did not counter — that Colbert noted the settlement’s bribe-y nature:
Colbert then claimed the reason for the settlement is that Paramount wants to get on Trump’s good side, “Now, I believe this kind of complicated financial sentiment with a sitting government official has a technical meme in legal circles. It’s ‘Big, fat bribe’ because it all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner: Skydance.”
Christy got all huffy when Colbert argued that he could be fired for pointing this out:
It’s ironic that Colbert mentioned the ABC lawsuit. Despite the settlement, ABC’s news coverage remains unchanged, This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos remains employed, and Jimmy Kimmel is still telling a disproportionate amount of Trump jokes. Yet, Colbert still raised the possibility that Skydance would target him, “Some of the TV typers out there are blogging that once Skydance gets CBS, the new owners’ desire to please Trump could ‘put pressure on late-night host and frequent Trump critic Stephen Colbert.’ Okay, okay, but how are they going to put pressure on Stephen Colbert if they can’t find him? And even if they do, and even if they do, Mr. Stephen always has his scented oil business to fall back on.”
A lot of that discourse seems to be of clickbait from people who are trying to play into liberal fears of Trump using authoritarian tactics to shut down his critics. Colbert’s future may be in doubt given the uncertain future of the late night comedy talk show format, but the actual possibility that Colbert, by far the most watched late night host not named Greg Gutfeld, gets fired or isn’t re-signed after 2026 due to politics is highly unlikely.
Well, Colbert’s prediction came true, as Christy admitted two days later:
In a surprising move on Thursday, CBS announced that it will cancel The Late Show in May 2026. The show, which debuted in 1993 with host David Letterman, is currently hosted by Stephen Colbert.
CBS was quick to attempt to squash any rumors that the show’s cancellation had anything to do with Paramount’s possible merger with Skydance amid furor at CBS that the company settled in a recent lawsuit with President Trump in an attempt to, in their mind, bribe the president, “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert’s contract was scheduled to expire in 2026.
The decision to cancel The Late Show comes after CBS cancelled After Midnight after a year and a half, as host Taylor Tomlinson decided a full-time career in stand-up was better than being tethered to a late-night TV show. Paramount’s other late night program, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, also runs a tight budget, as it has not had a full-time host since 2022.
Christy offered no reason why anyone should trust at face value CBS’ explanation that Colbert’s firing had nothing to do with the lawsuit. He then whined that Colbert was not a docile right-winger like himself:
As for Colbert, he was a leading voice for America’s religious left. He would call conservatives bad Christians on spending cuts and immigration while championing abortion and so-called “gender-affirming care.”
He was the epitome of the downfall of late night comedy into what could be called late night clapter, where the applauding of conservative misfortunes replaced wit or cleverness. Under Colbert, The Late Show became an avenue for liberals to vent their frustration at conservatives through cathartic booing.
Colbert was the most likely of all the permanent late night hosts to bring on liberal guests. His show would have been a must-visit place for 2028 Democratic hopefuls. Even on this Thursday, Colbert is scheduled to have Sen. Adam Schiff on.
It should be noted that Christy, in his role as the MRC’s comedy cop, has never complained about the right-wing bias of Gutfeld.
Curist Houck rehashed Christy’s comedy-cop attack lines against Colbert in a July 18 post:
On Friday, it wasn’t that surprising CBS Mornings would be inconsolable over the “very sad” “kick in the stomach”Thursday night that parent company Paramount would be canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May, the home for late-night group therapy for liberals. While CBS said they “love this man” and are in awe of him, NBC’s Today even joined in and celebrated his “signature political commentary.”
It’s a farce to act as though he has broad appeal and given the mountains of research compiled by our Alex Christy. For example, 82 percent of Colbert’s political jokes in 2024 targeted Republicans at 2,340 vs. only 479 to the left and 15 jokes about Fox News to a combined two about CNN and one about MSNBC. And for political guest, Colbert has cozied up to 29 liberals thus far in 2025 to zero on the right.
To give one last example for good measure, Christy found in February Colbert and his fellow nighttime lefties focused on Trump nine times more in his first four weeks as President in 2025 vs. the first four weeks of Biden in 2021.
Houck didn’t mention that Christy has refused to evaluate Gutfeld’s joke bias. Instead, he whined further that Colbert wasn’t a right-winger like himself:
NBC’s Today was crestfallen, starting with having three teases about a competing network. Co-host Craig Melvin and Carson Daly said in the first and third teases respectively they would take a look at Colbert’s “place in TV history.”
Entertainment correspondent Chloe Melas – who would admit she was a Colbert Report intern – conceded this was something “none of us expected, and it is pretty shocking news for late night fans, who were confused and angry about why CBS would pull the plug on such a popular show.”
There again, the disconnect between the left and the rest of the country as the former views Colbert as a unifying force and the place to be, rather than late-night group therapy for liberals where potshots at conservatives as ignoramuses are played for applause and laughter.
But doesn’t Gutfeld take regular potshots at liberals for applause and laughter? Houck doesn’t explain the double standard.
Jeffrey Lord spent his July 19 column lamenting that Colbert wasn’t another Johnny Carson:
Carson would never, -ever!- have gone down the road of making himself into a nightly political critic of a President – any President – knowing full well that perhaps as much as half of his audience had voted for his target. He just didn’t see it as his job to harangue a President he didn’t agree with – or cheer on a President he did agree with. Their foibles? Sure? But that was always done in a way that made his audience laugh uproariously. He could and did occasionally send a hilarious zinger a President’s way – and with a sly smile he made everyone on all sides laugh.
That wasn’t Colbert’s thing. Colbert was about carrying the flag for an unapologetic far left-wingism. And if his potential audience didn’t like it? In short? Tough.
Lord offered no evidence Colbert represented “far left-wingism.” He huffed further:
Good comedy, by definition, is about making people laugh. All kinds of people. In this case that would mean Trump supporters and Trump haters. It would get laughter from conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, adults and coming of age late teenagers.
But that’s not what Colbert was about. And when that was understood, his audience of Americans staying up late enough looking for laughter and relief from a long working day either went elsewhere or simply turned off the TV.
Which, in turn, has now cost CBS a considerably pretty penny.
If you live inside the liberal CBS bubble or the liberal media bubble? Shocking.
If you live in the real world?
Not shocking. Not shocking at all.
Lord made no mention of Gutfeld and his lack of appeal outside the right-wing media bubble.
The (unproven) profit explanation
A July 19 post by Christy complained again that the obvious settlement link was pointed out:
CNN’s Jake Tapper tried desperately on The Lead on Friday to connect the news that CBS has cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with parent company Paramount’s legal drama with President Trump. Tapper admitted he had no evidence for this but still found the whole thing to be “interesting” and promoted anonymous sources to help him advance his conspiracy theory.
During his monologue, Tapper recalled an interview Colbert gave with PBS where he called Trump “boring,” which led to Trump calling for Colbert to be fired. After a clip, Tapper observed, “And here we are ten months later, Colbert has been canceled, and PBS is losing its federal funding. Interesting.”
Not really, but because Trump reacted gleefully to the news, Tapper continued, “And in case you wondered how the president took the news about Colbert, he posted on Truth Social, quote, ‘I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.’ He’s still not satisfied, though. ‘I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.’ That’s what President Trump said.”
Trump’s comments aside, Colbert was not fired. His contract is expiring, and CBS decided re-upping a show that loses $40 million a year wasn’t worth it.
Christy continued to grouse that Tapper refused to unquestioningly accept CBS’ explanation for the cancellation the way he does:
He then admitted he had no evidence for any of this but still accused Paramount of letting Trump think he had something to do with it, “Now, we may never know if CBS ending the Colbert Show was part of some secret deal cut between Paramount and Trump, or if it was just a freebie Paramount threw in, or if it was entirely unrelated and actually because of financial reasons, but Paramount is happy to let Trump think it is in the name of pleasing him.”
That’s just not true. CBS’s statement explicitly said the decision had nothing to do with Colbert’s liberalism or other business involving Paramount.
Christy didn’t explain why CBS’ word on Colbert must be trusted so implicitly.
Intern Matthew Seck similarly ranted — and similarly baselessly trusted CBS’ word — in a July 21 post:
On Friday night’s The 11th Hour, MSNBC host Symone Sanders ran a segment discussing the recent announcement of CBS’s move to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, ending David Letterman’s legacy. Despite indicators pointing towards financial implications, panelists, including co-creator of The Daily Show and abortion activist Liz Winstead, decided it was purely political and President Trump’s fault.
[…]
Despite a 40 percent decrease in advertising revenue since 2018 and the fact that it had been reportedly operating at a $40 million loss per year, MSNBC still chose to strictly cite politics as the reason for the cancellation. CBS also reported the cancelling of six other shows in 2025, a far cry from the narrative that Colbert was being singled out.
Seck then touted the right-wing competition: “Despite Winstead calling Fox’s late night show Gutfeld a ‘gang of garbage’ they continue to top the ratings among all late night shows and outpaced Winstead’s Daily Show viewership by 2.295 million.”
Christy returned to huff in a July 22 post:
The men of late night reacted to the news that CBS has cancelled The Late Show with varying degrees of intelligence on their Monday shows. On the dumb end of the spectrum was fellow Paramount employee Jon Stewart, who reacted on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show by telling CBS to “go fuck” itself and dropping over 40 F-bombs.
Stewart saw a conspiracy in CBS’s announcement, “If you’re trying to figure out why Stephen’s show is ending, I don’t think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives, or in CBS’s QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night. I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America’s institutions at this very moment. Institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair-doodling commander-in-chief.”
[…]
Colbert himself was more reserved, “CBS, who I want to reiterate have always been great partners, put out a statement saying very nice things about me and about the show, and thank you to them for that.”
He did have one dud, “How could it be a purely financial decision if The Late Show is number one in the ratings?… somebody at CBS followed up their gracious press release with a gracious anonymous leak, saying they pulled the plug on our show because of losses pegged between 40 million and $50 million a year. Forty million’s a big number. I could see us losing $24 million. But where would Paramount have possibly spent the other 16 mill — oh, yeah.”
[…]
Colbert wasn’t wrong that late night has suffered as network TV in general declines, but this means that people who desire less liberal comedy have several additional options. Stewart and Meyers would be well-advised to learn that lesson, or they could be next.
Christy seems to be contradicting himself here — after first slavishly buying into CBS’ explanation that politics had nothing to do with Colbert’s cancellation, he’s now suggesting that it did.
Nicholas Fondacaro brought it up in his July 22 hate-watch of “The View”:
The firing of “comedian” Stephen Colbert by CBS had the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View in a tizzy, as they finally got around to discussing it on Tuesday. Of course, co-host Sunny Hostin poured on the incendiary rhetoric, suggesting that his firing (with a 10-month ramp) “is the dismantling of our Constitution.” She also seemed to hint at political violence as a possible answer.
Despite admitting that the reason Colbert was fired and the show canceled “could be financial,” Hostin wanted people to heavily lean toward it being “purely political.”
“Because it’s very clear that if it is political, this is the dismantling of our democracy. This is the dismantling of our Constitution,” she declared. “That means the very rubric of our democracy is being dismantled. And I think every single person should be really, really concerned about it.”
[…]
In contrast, co-host Sara Haines actually put weight to the numbers that supported that the firing and cancelation was due to financial failures of the show, pointing out that Colbert had lost $40 million:
Fondacaro did not cite any actual numbers to back that up. Curtis Houck served up his own whining:
Despite having already spent nearly 12 minutes (11:38) on Friday morning decrying the stunning news of CBS cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May 2026, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today returned to do more pouting Tuesday about this show as one of many (far-left) late-night comedy as part of both media “institutions” and the “cultural Zeitgeist” as evidenced by Monday’s “star-filled show of unity.”
This time, they added eight minutes and five seconds to the pile (excluding teases and their third-hour editions) with CBS featuring not one, but two segments bemoaning this as though Colbert himself, not the show, had passed away. Thankfully, as we’ll see, co-host Tony Dokoupil provided a much-needed reality check.
[…]
Dokoupil gave a succinct counter to this, emphasizing both the largesse of the show and the previously ignored fact that late-night comedy shows are no longer unifying:
[…]
Dokoupil added more welcome perspective. Conceding “it’s all I hear about from people on social media” and that “many things are true in this case,” he called out those who cut the cord:
Houck didn’t mention that he has previously, and dubiously, dismissed Dokoupil as a “socialist” because he once did a segment on income inequality, or why his assessment of Dokoupil has suddenly changed because of an apparent embrace of right-wing talking points.
Still buying it
The MRC continued to buy into CBS’ evidence-free claims that it canceled Colbert’s because his show was losing money, as illustrated in a July 23 post by intern Lucas Escala:
Like many others in the liberal media, CNN’s The Situation Room co-hosts Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown were quick to jump on the growing wave of fear that somehow spread from a flopping comedy show getting cancelled. In an interview with CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter, the three expressed their concerns over what Colbert’s cancellation meant for the future of late-night TV… and our freedom.
When CBS announced the end of the award-winning The Late Show with Stephen Colbert over the show’s reported financial failings, many refused to believe it was possible. But, believe it or not, Stephen Colbert actually did win awards for his work on The Late Show.
He also lost Paramount Global $40 million dollars annually; $100 million to produce while only bringing in $60 million in ad revenue.
It really should come as no surprise that a show tanking that hard would get pulled off the air eventually, but liberals concocted a conspiracy that completely ignored the facts in front of them.
Escala offered no evidence to back up CBS’ claims. He also didn’t explain how the highest-rated late-night show could be considered to be “tanking.” Instead, Escala went on to huff that “Coming off the heels of Paramount’s $16 million dollar settlement with Trump over a defamation case, people tried to put two and two together, even when the facts clearly weren’t adding up.” Yet he offered no actual evidence that the two weren’t related.
Another intern, Ashley Taylor, pushed the same dubious narrative:
On Tuesday afternoon’s CNN News Central, host Brianna Keilar brought on liberal comedian Pete Dominick to dissect the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Dominick confidently suggested political motives were to blame, not CBS’s claim that the decision was “purely financial.”
Keilar asked Dominick what “the larger picture” might be, seemingly side‑stepping CBS’s official line.
Dominick, who once served as the warm‑up comedian for Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, made no bones about his disbelief that anything besides political pressure was at work.
[…]
Liberals, eager to pin yet another authoritarian label on Trump, fall in line with those like Senator Adam Schiff (D‑CA) among others, who have argued that Colbert’s relentless criticism of Trump must have alarmed Paramount’s merger ambitions. That theory, however, remains unverified and speculative at best.
[…]
If CBS removed Colbert’s show for political reasons, why not others within their left‑pleasing late‑night lineup? Paramount already owns numerous liberal‑leaning outlets, including Comedy Central, so singling out Colbert hardly bolsters the merger‑suppression story.
It’s absurd to suggest in 2025 that government officials– let alone the President– could outright order a private network to cancel a show. Dominick’s hyperbolic “fascism” claim serves more as alarmist shorthand than substantive reasoning.
Taylor similarly failed to offer any actual evidence disputing a link or explain why CBS’ story should be trusted. She then played the victimization card: “It’s interesting to note that public figures such as Savannah Chrisley and Gina Carano lost deals and roles over their conservative views, but nobody called them victims of fascism.”
Tim Graham weighed in with his July 23 podcast:
CBS canceling Stephen Colbert’s late night show — ten months from now — has been treated like the “dismantling” of the Constitution, and democracy itself. Liberals act like they alone represent the First Amendment and democracy, and whenever someone cancels a TV show, it must be a craven attempt to curry favor with a “fascist.” Socialists fuss that “corporate masters” don’t have the courage to rip Trump 24/7 as they wish.
He then touted how “NewsBusters media analyst and comedy researcher Alex Christy joins the show to discuss all things Colbert.” Speaking of Christy, he had a fit over the idea that the money CBS’ parent paid to Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit could have been used to save the show:
Stephen Colbert tried to suggest on Wednesday’s The Late Show that there was something contradictory or even hypocritical in CBS deciding to cancel him while parent company Paramount settled in a recent lawsuit with President Trump that could lead them to giving up around $36 million.
Colbert brought out his Trump voice as he read from a Truth Social post, “One bright spot for Trump in the news right now is how much he’s making my network crawl. Yesterday, Trump posted, ‘Breaking news!’ Yes, that is what you’re doing to the news. Tell us how this time. ‘We have just achieved a big and important win in our historic lawsuit against 60 Minutes, CBS, and Paramount. Paramount/CBS/60 Minutes have today paid $16 million in settlement, and we will also anticipate receiving $20 million more from the new owners for a total of over $36 million.’”
It has been reported that The Late Show lost the network around $40 million a year, so Colbert did some mental math, “Wow, hold on, plus they’re paying his legal fees. Sixteen plus 20—that means by bending the knee, they lost, like, $40 million this year. They better watch out. They better watch out. They might get canceled. For purely financial reasons. Purely.”
Of course, there is a big difference between a one-time payment and an annual loss, but Colbert kept going[.] […]
It’s hard to tell how much Colbert himself actually believes in the idea that the lawsuit had something to do with his cancellation, but many of his viewers and political allies believe there is a clear connection, but routines like this won’t help rid them of this mistaken belief.
Christy offered no evidence that this belief is “mistaken.” A few hours later, he groused that Colbert guest Sandra Oh “wished that a plague would descend upon CBS and its parent company, Paramount,” adding that Colbert “knows The Late Show is ending for financial reasons, just as CBS said” — again, without substantiating the claim.
Meanwhile, an MRC executive ran to the right-wing safe space of Fox News to gloat:
MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider pointed out that Americans aren’t tuning in for the partisan bias and radical beliefs pushed by the legacy media. That’s why people like Late Show host Stephen Colbert are getting squeezed out.
Schneider told Fox News senior correspondent Kevin Corke that print and broadcast legacy media were taking a beating for losing touch. On the Wednesday edition of Fox News Tonight, Schneider said, “If these entertainment companies are not serving the public interest, if they are not serving consumers, they are going to go out of business.”
Schneider didn’t explain how the top-rated late-night show could possibly be described as “not serving consumers.”