How can I make a lot of money late at night? The trick, according to CBS, is to cancel traditional programming and lend time to others.
The Paramount Skydance network, which has been under fire for weeks over its decision to fire Stephen Colbert and cancel its long-running “Late Show,” says the move will move its late-night business from a loss to a profit.
“We are proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new late-night business and programming model that aggressively addresses network daytime hours that are cost-prohibitive to sustain,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “With this ‘buy time’ model, we were able to turn an hour of annual losses of approximately $40 million into $15 million in profit. That’s a $55 million swing.”
CBS has been under mockery and criticism for weeks after Mr. Colbert cut back on programming and invited guests who criticized network executives. David Letterman, who hosted “The Late Show” before Colbert, compared the executives behind the show’s cancellation to “lying weasels” during an appearance during the show’s waning years.
Many in the industry believe that Colbert’s cancellation was not due to financial reasons touted by CBS, but rather a desire by Paramount executives to curry favor with the president, who is known to dislike late-night cartoons that poke fun at Trump and his policies. Colbert relied heavily on political humor, a move that helped “Late Show” garner more viewers overall than rivals such as NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” In fact, Colbert’s headline-grabbing show helped reverse the fortunes of late-night CBS.
Adding fuel to the fire was the poor ratings of Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” roundtable show the day after Colbert’s final episode. The series generated a total of 878,000 viewers across two half-hour shows on Friday, May 22, according to Nielsen data. The first half hour was the first episode, and the second episode was a rerun from September. The night before, Colbert’s finale drew a larger audience than usual, attracting more than 6.7 million viewers.
This comparison is not an apples-to-apples comparison, since a late-night host’s final show is sure to draw a large audience, just as reruns aired on Friday nights are not. The decision to start Allen’s show on Fridays during Colbert’s time slot was surprising. This is because none of the current late-night programs regularly air originals on Fridays, meaning that viewers are not regularly watching the programs in the usual number of programs.
The deal CBS struck with Allen is that the entrepreneur and media owner will pay 100% of the production costs and pay CBS a royalty fee. Allen, in turn, sells the ads that appear alongside his shows. CBS is paid the same amount regardless of ratings or ratings during the period.
All networks have had to struggle with how to handle late-night programming. Late night shows remain a staple of American culture and conversation, but they no longer draw the audiences they did when Johnny Carson, Letterman and Jay Leno were influential. According to the guidelines, ad spending on late-night TV programming will fall from $519.7 million in 2017 to $209 million in 2025, a nearly 60% decline. The Late Show accounted for 27% of all late-night TV spending in 2025 and 29% of all spending so far in 2026, according to the company’s data.
With Colbert’s departure, much of the money left in the daytime show could shift to digital, along with viewers who traditionally watched the show late at night.
