Stephen Colbert Reveals CBS Originally Offered Him a Longer Contract

I saw quite a bit of discussion about how profitable The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was around the time of his cancellation. In what seemed like an attempt to rationalize what appears to be a blatantly politically motivated move, folks were saying, “But how much money did it make?” There were reports that the show was too expensive, even though the company that owned it, Paramount Skydance, was preparing to spend billions of dollars acquiring Warner Bros. The idea that it was a purely financial move just never passed the smell test, and Colbert himself just added a new wrinkle to the story.

In a recent interview with the New York Times (according to Deadline), Colbert directly called out the claim that he was too expensive, offering his understanding of why people would question the company’s excuse. “I do not dispute their rationale,” he explained. “I do make jokes about it. But I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn’t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me, because the network did it to themselves.” As he has mentioned before, the decision to fire him came two days after he called CBS’s decision to settle with the current President a “big fat bribe.” Calling things “fishy” is generous.

Colbert also revealed a new aspect of the situation: when he last negotiated a new contract, CBS offered him five years. He ended up going with three. “It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming,” he noted in the interview. “They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say, ‘It’s over,’ they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”

According to LateNighter, Colbert getting a three-year deal would have put him up for negotiation around the same time as Jimmy Kimmel (with whom he shares a manager), potentially giving him some leverage, but it was all for naught. Instead, CBS decided to pull the plug, leaving us all to wonder indeed, “what changed?” But, again, the answer is pretty easy. The new owner wants to gas up the current President and can’t have one of his hosts calling out his obvious corruption. Seems pretty straightforward, if you ask me!

Colbert will not be without other work. He’s co-writing a Lord of the Rings movie with his son, for Zod’s sake. The man will be better off not fighting for a medium that is, admittedly, dying. But these last few weeks are going to be sad as hell.