CBS and its parent company Skydance Media can rationalize it as much as they want but canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is politically motivated.
This is the type of shady strong arm deals that the President is used to. Yes streaming services are usurping the old fashioned broadcast networks. It was bound to happen when DVR became popular in the early 2000s. For many of us, trying to record a show was hit or miss depending if a VCR would cooperate. Even a momentary power loss of a few seconds could screw it all up. And DVR was better but not perfect.
Living here in Oklahoma, the meteorologists seem to cream in their pants whenever a storm is forecast, cutting into your favorite shows to tell you something that you could easily check on your phone. Streaming was the surefire answer. Watch it whenever you want and you don’t have to delete it to save space so you can watch something over and over.
But it’s no secret that Colbert didn’t care for the current Republican Party and Presidential Administration. On The Daily Show and even the sitcom Strangers With Candy, Colbert has shown his best talents – he looks straight as an arrow but there’s comic craziness and genius behind his eyes. Just as Phil Hartman had done, he has shown looks don’t tell the whole story.
I never got into The Colbert Report but his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondence Dinner seemed to show a lot of people missed the joke. He may have looked like the straight man but that’s the facade.
If you’re a network executive and you want a host to bore audiences to sleep so they’ll leave the TV on, you hire Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon. Colbert like Seth Meyers, John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel are a different breed. They punch up at the powers that be that encourage others to punch down.
The move to silence Colbert has the opposite effect. It’s made him, Kimmel and Meyers more popular and turn them into First Amendment Martyrs. They’re getting the last laughs.
Maybe the era of late-night talk shows with celebrities plugging their books, TV shows, movies or music is coming to an end as people have more access with the Internet. But Colbert will take the next step. The door swings both ways. Podcasts give people more freedom and more attention.
One day this madness is going to end. We just need to keep supporting others rather having them try to divide us.
Zane Says 