Tag: cbs

There’s precedent for this: Twenty years ago this year, Howard Stern left terrestrial radio, opting for the Sirius Satellite (later Sirius XM) moneybag. Twenty years later, Howard Stern has gone from an A-list superstar to a has-been; the natural consequence of hiding behind a paywall for so long.

Without the feeder system of terrestrial radio to onboard new fans, eventually, his older fans lost interest and left, and nobody new took their place. And now Howard Stern — a man whose audience was once 20 million strong — has become a complete and total nobody.

Consider: Stern’s 1993 “Private Parts” book sold over 1.1 million copies. It was the fastest-selling title in Simon & Schuster history.

A few decades later, he released the book “Howard Stern Comes Again” (2019) with the exact same publisher, Simon & Schuster. While accurate book stats are tricky to track, in one listing, Stern’s 2019 book was credited with just 265,295 sales, finishing about 2,500 units behind Mark Levin’s seventh-ranked book title, “Unfreedom of the Press.” (There were even anecdotal reports of Stern’s book being sold at the dollar store, the tragic fate of so many over-published and under-demanded book titles.) Stern’s audience is a pitiful sliver of what it once was.

And eventually, that’ll be Stephen Colbert’s fate, too. But don’t focus on that yet: The important part is what happened after Stern announced he’d be leaving terrestrial radio (Oct. 6, 2004) but before he actually left on Dec. 16, 2005.

Stern spent much of his final months on terrestrial radio hyping up how awesome his new satellite radio show was gonna be (often by throwing shade at traditional radio). It led to a 43-page CBS lawsuit for “[misappropriating] millions of dollars’ worth of CBS Radio air time for his own financial benefit.” (The lawsuit was later settled, with Sirius paying CBS Radio a few million bucks, while also receiving rights to rebroadcast Stern’s old radio tapes.)

In retrospect, nobody at CBS should’ve been surprised: Of course Stern was gonna hype up his move to satellite! His new financial model depended on it! (Indeed, Stern later sued Sirius XM — and lost — when he demanded a payment of $300 million for the new subscribers gained via the Sirius-XM merger.)

Here we are, twenty years later, and CBS is in the same exact situation as before.

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Fired CBS host Stephen Colbert threw a tantrum and lashed out at President Trump last night after getting fired.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last Thursday for financial reasons, especially given the low ratings. The show will end after the next season in May 2026.

The following day, Trump celebrated the news while mocking Colbert’s low ratings.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Colbert expressed confusion over being fired for financial reasons, pointing out that The Late Show is currently No. 1 in ratings and suggesting an ulterior motive.

“Over the weekend, someone at CBS followed up their gracious press release, followed up 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.” $40 million is a big number. I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million?” Colbert said, referencing Paramount’s decision to settle a lawsuit with the Trump Administration over the editing of Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview.

“Over the weekend, it sunk in that they’re killing off our show, but they made one mistake: They left me alive. And now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off,” Colbert boasted.

After reading off Trump’s Truth Social post, which responded to his termination, Colbert lost his temper.

How dare you, sir?! Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?” Colbert fired back. “Go f**k yourself!”

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