Colbert is getting bounced, but he'll bounce back

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Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m. I talk with WGN-AM 720 host John Williams about what’s making news and likely to be grist for the PS mill. The WGN listen-live link is here.

Colbert will rise again … or not

I’m part of the reason that CBS plans to axe “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next spring. Maybe you are, too.

I love the guy. He’s witty, thoughtful and original. But I don’t watch his program. I don’t even DVR it anymore, but instead rely on coming across viral social media clips from his monologues, skits and interviews. There’s too much else to watch — too much other content on my screens — to perch in front of the TV for an hour four nights a week hoping for moments of amusement amid the celebrity self-promotion and commercials.

Is Paramount/CBS cutting ties to Colbert to make nice with vindictive President Donald Trump, a frequent target of Colbert’s caustic wit? Network officials have denied the charge, but it wouldn’t surprise me given the network’s recent, grotesque capitulation to the White House.

Yet as many news outlets are reporting, viewers like me have cratered the popularity of these late-night shows. Here’s Reuters:

Advertising revenue for Colbert's show has dropped 40% since 2018 … . Recently, … “The Late Show” has been losing $40 million a year, said a person briefed on the matter. The show's ad revenue plummeted to $70.2 million last year from $121.1 million in 2018, according to ad tracking firm Guideline.

Here’s the New York Times:

During their heyday, late-night shows were propelled to profitable heights by their popularity with younger audiences, the most appealing demographic for advertisers. But many of those younger viewers were the first ones out the door as digital and streaming options proliferated.

Although many genres of American television have successfully made the leap to streaming — sports, prime-time scripted shows, reality series, even soap operas — far fewer people watch entire episodes of topical talk shows. … In May, the “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart likened himself to the manager of a Tower Records store in an era with Spotify and YouTube. “People are always going to want music, but I’m still the guy who’s like, ‘Come into my giant building and let me show you the new CD rack,’” he said on a podcast.

Colbert is a singular entertainer, and there remain dozens of platforms outside of CBS — streaming and cable — that might snatch him up starting next May. Even assuming the claims about the perilous decline in post-prime time viewership are accurate, we should expect a bidding war for Colbert’s talents. But the offers are likely to be far more modest than his reported current annual salary of $15 million.

Maybe he won’t have an in-studio band or even a live audience. Maybe it’ll be a weekly show — similar to “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” or “Real Time with Bill Maher.” The market will decide, and maybe that decision will come back to bite CBS. But I doubt it.

Variety’s James Hibberd offered some thoughts:

David Letterman launched an elevated interview show on Netflix. Jon Stewart did his own twist on “The Daily Show” for Apple TV+ and launched a podcast before returning to “The Daily Show.” And (Conan) O’Brien not only launched a podcast, but a whole podcast network, which he sold to SiriusXM for a tidy $150 million, and on the side makes a travel show for HBO Max.

The easiest option for Colbert would be if another company — perhaps a deep-pocketed streamer — wants to pay him to keep doing something rather similar to what he’s already doing for a chance at getting his 2.4 million viewers a night. The bigger hurdle, one imagines, is finding a company that’s both down for this and doesn’t mind potentially irking the Trump administration in the process (especially given that Disney, Apple and Amazon have seemed inclined to bend the knee, not just CBS parent Paramount).

Another road is if Colbert decides to launch his own talk or interview show — whether a podcast or on YouTube. The average age of a Colbert viewer is 68, which perhaps says more about CBS’ audience than it does Colbert’s, but it also makes it a bit tougher to imagine Colbert hustling viewers to “smash that like and subscribe button” on YouTube alongside MrBeast. … There’s also the unforeseeable possibility that Colbert might get signed onto some entirely new format somewhere and rise, phoenix-like, as part of a brand new thing. While he might be the most traditional of the broadcast hosts, in some respects, the man has certainly done major pivots before. The Colbert Report, after all, was Colbert pretending to be an entirely different person.

The wild-card outcome is that Colbert decides — after rolling out Trump jokes for a decade — to get in the political game himself. While Colbert lives in New Jersey, he’s from South Carolina, and one of the state’s senate seats is open next year.

Speaking of market forces …

I certainly understand the consternation about State Farm’s announced 27% hike in homeowners’ insurance premiums in Illinois. The company has blamed rising costs of repairs and the increased frequency of damaging weather events, and has claimed that, last year, it “paid out $1.26 for every dollar in premium collected.”

If that’s misleading and the rate hike isn’t necessary or reasonable, then I’d expect other large companies that offer homeowners insurance — Allstate, Nationwide, Chubb, Liberty Mutual and so on — to undercut State Farm and take business from them (currently estimated at 1 in 3 homes in Illinois). An insurer who didn’t spend millions on TV commercials featuring celebrities could probably offer better rates.

However, all insurers should be required to open their books and be subject to governmental oversight given that many homeowners work with mortgage companies that require insurance.

Similarly, I’d like to see WNBA owners open their books in response to the message "Pay Us What You Owe Us" from Women's National Basketball Players Association that appeared on warm-up shirts prior to last weekend’s WNBA All-Star game.

Women’s hoops are now attracting larger and more enthusiastic audiences in person and on TV — ratings up 23% and ticket sales up 26% so far this season, with a blockbuster TV rights deal on the horizon that promises to erase the league’s $40 million annual losses reported for 2024 — and the players deserve a more generous revenue sharing arrangement than they’re now getting.

Market Watch:

Under the current CBA, WNBA players only split 9.3% of total league revenue, which is much less than what athletes in other major sports leagues earn. NBA players in aggregate receive between 49% and 51% of basketball-related income, NFL players get 48% of all revenue and NHL players get 50% of revenue.

It’s not going to be “NBA money,” as Shaquille O’Neal has called for, since the women play far fewer games per season and their TV rights — soon to be $200 million a year — don’t compare to the NBA’s nearly $7 billion annual TV rights deals.

Notes and comments from readers — lightly edited — along with my responses

School choice?

My critique of the federal version of Illinois’ “Invest in Kids” program that funnels tax money directly into private schools drew objections, as even many of my more progressive readers favor “school choice,” or, as I refer to it “have others pay for my school choice.”

K.B. — I hope you hear from other parents for whom the local public school just did not work out for their child. In our case our youngest child was not reading at grade level for many years, he was diagnosed as being farsighted in 6th grade along with another vision issue so there was a lot of ground to make up following this diagnosis. He was also diagnosed by the school psychiatrist with dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia and thus qualified for special education accommodations and an IEP.

What do you do when tenured teachers will not follow the IEP and just do whatever they want to do? We decided to send him to a private school to complete grammar school. For high school our son attended a Catholic high school which had a program with additional assistance that helped him with his issues. He is now a successful practicing attorney.

David Leitschuh —Eric - Your lament that the $1,700 tax credit for contributions toward school tuition for low income children in the new legislation will somehow starve the public education establishment of needed funding is preposterous.

The abject failure of public education in Chicago and other cities has nothing to do with funding (about $30,000 per student in CPS!). Several red states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Indiana, etc. with significantly lower funding than Illinois have greatly improved student academic scores and outcomes.

What is the secret sauce for this success? A return to core academics coupled with accountability for both teachers and students. Things that are conspicuous in CPS by their absence.

Of course Stacey Gates and the teachers unions vociferously fight against any students being given opportunity for an alternative CPS, because the superior academic achievement in charter and private schools serves to undeniably highlight the failure factories of CPS which are operated for the benefit of the union members and not the children.

CPS and other urban school districts are not at all suffering from a lack of funding. The US ranks very high worldwide in public education funding, yet we continue to fall down the list of academic competence in the world with presently less than 50% of 4th and 8th graders in the US able to read at grade level. So a program that affords children from lower income families in our country the opportunity to receive a much better education and greatly improved life chances is a very beautiful thing for these children, their families and our society.

Jeff Pieler — The notion that school choice drains funds from public schools is a popular talking point among supporters of the existing public-school model. But have these supporters actually looked at the impact of competition on the performance of existing public schools? Are they skeptical of competition in general or just in the case of education as a public good?

The opposition to school choice leads me to conclude that many progressives feel that the true customers of the public school system are not the children and their parents but school administrators and teachers. Supporting a monopoly makes sense in that case but would be tough to defend if stated publicly.

You point out that school choice advocates support directing money “that’s not theirs (tax payments)” into programs that will hurt public education and teachers’ unions. But the advocacy of any position on most political issues usually involves directing funds belonging to other people. It’s hardly unique to school choice. Guilt ridden progressives can always voluntarily send more money to the federal government if they feel undertaxed or increase their donations if they are upset about the federal cuts to NPR/PBS.

As is the case with most progressive policies, intent matters, more so than results. You are skeptical of the altruism of school choice supporters. Perhaps they do simply want to weaken a public employee union rather than improve the educational outcomes of children. Should we also look at the possible motives of those opposed to choice, opposed to empowering parents?

While I think the opposition is primarily motivated by power, I wouldn’t rule out the hint of liberal racism — the unstated skepticism about giving power to particular parental beneficiaries who won’t make good decisions on behalf of their children.

Zorn – Sure, “concerned progressives” can always send more money to the government, but, by the same token, concerned conservatives and others who rend their garments over the discontinuation of the tax credit in Illinois can always make tax deductible contributions to all the scholarship funds for all the private schools they want.

What I don’t want to allow them to do is redirect the tax money they owe the government to private schools.

Evidence for the purported impact of competition on public schools – claims that voucher programs increase test scores among the children who remain in public schools –- is pretty weak and seems to imply that, currently, public school teachers and administrators just aren’t trying hard enough; that the threat of students leaving for private schools inspires them to … what, exactly?

Is David Leitschuh correct that public schools need only return to “core academics” and accountability (whatever that means) is all that stands in the way of success in public eduction? Or could the reason that some schools are “failing” be that they have to accept all children in their districts, including those with learning and behavioral disabilities? That they can’t just expel or reject students who are very difficult to educate? Or because their class sizes are larger because of underfunding?

To me, this issue has nothing to with protecting administrators or members of teachers’ unions. Sure, the unions are self interested. So are the private and parochial school administrators and parents who are now paying tuition at those schools and would gladly take taxpayer funded scholarships.

For those of us without a dog in the race, though, this issue has to do with focusing public dollars and resources and regulations on improving public schools. And that would certainly include creating efficiencies — consolidating vastly under-enrolled schools, for instance — and taking what lessons we can from successful charter and private schools, not just surrendering to them.

And the issue has to do with the desire of me and many others not to see our tax money funneled into religious education. Those who are interested in how my position stands up in a debate with a voucher advocate, here is a lengthy back and forth I conducted in 2000 that remains relevant today.

The crackdown on undocumented immigrants

Joanie Wimmer — We need to start seeing other people in other lands, as Charles Dickens wrote, as “fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” We’re in this together, like it or not.

We also need to remember the words of President John F. Kennedy who said:

So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Jake H. — I don't believe in a chaotic open-border system. I'm not sure anyone does. But we should recognize that the overwhelming factor driving both legal and illegal immigration to the U.S., and everywhere else too, is the draw, the jobs, the opportunities, the labor demand. This is why people come, why, indeed, they are rational to come despite the risks. We should welcome and authorize immigrants to meet that demand.

If there's no work, there's no money for remittances or to live and nobody comes, or they go home. Why doesn't Trump crack down on employers who are knowingly hiring unauthorized workers at a massive scale? This could in theory lead to massive and relatively orderly self-deportation as the jobs dry up. Because it would be too effective and thus disastrous for the economy. Far better to look busy to your nativist base by inflicting random cruelty.

Mark K. — With the population aging and birth rates plunging, you can just look at Japan to see how well xenophobia and isolationism bode for the economy. I am for a sensible immigration policy that lets in law-abiding people seeking a better life for themselves and their families, who will be productive members of our society. These immigrants should be vetted and documented. This is how our country worked for many decades — people showed up at Ellis island, checked for tuberculosis, documented and let in.

On Lee Elia’s famous tirade

Steve Roess — The extremely profane post-game rant in 1983 by Lee Elia, who died earlier this month, is still funny, of course. But listening to it this time, after not having heard it for years, I found it poignant. I felt sorry for the guy. With more years behind me now, I can hear the anguish in his voice, and how much he cared about his job and his players. Compared to today’s meaningless, sanitized, throwaway sound bites, such genuineness and passion are refreshing.

Zorn — True. The authenticity and depth of his passion is powerful and relatable, though all the profanity ended up obscuring his message — that he believed in his team and wanted the fans to stick with them despite a rough start to the season.

On members of Biden’s inner circle taking the 5th before Congress

At the news that former President Joe Biden’s physician, his wife and a former senior advisor to the first lady all pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify to the Republican-led House Oversight Committee looking into Biden’s mental fitness while in office, I wrote that it was a very bad look, even though the House probe was clearly mean spirited and not going anywhere When you take the Fifth, it’s common sense to assume you’ve got something very damning to hide. Most readers disagreed.

Skeptic — Saying anything potentially exposes you to criminal liability. Clamming up should be the default option when being interrogated by authorities.

Dianne Michels — Pleading the 5th in the Republican led probe into Biden’s competency was wise in that anything they would say would be exploited by such an untrustworthy group.

Mark K. — Under normal circumstances, I agree that taking the 5th makes one look less than innocent. However, in dealing with the current regime, I would not hold it against anyone. Anyone caught in the crosshairs of Trump's corrupt and weaponized DOJ knows that anything they say, will 100% be used against them — any carelessly uttered word may be a hook for potential prosecution, persecution, scandal, a hit piece on Fox, anything you can imagine.

Zorn – That can’t be our standard for refusing to testify, though. No one would ever testify under oath about anything if simply fearing that anything they say could be twisted into a perjury charge (witness the story Monday that the GOP is referring criminal charges against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for alleged misstatements under oath about the scope of the rehab project at Fed headquarters in a naked attempt to give President Donald Trump a reason to fire him.)

Of course the simple solution for Congress would be to grant immunity from those called to testify.

Beth Bales — Why is the investigation into Biden's mental state mean-spirited and why won't it go anywhere? There should be an investigation into who was running the country because it sure as heck wasn't him. I continue to be stunned by the lack of curiosity as to what was happening and who was making decisions. Why aren't you? And have you read anything about the autopen situation where — though he said he signed off on every one — changes were made in "broad categories" of people who should be pardoned, in some cases, and they weren't brought back to him?

Zorn — Of course he was “running the country.” Same as Trump is “running the country.” Biden was cognitively somewhat impaired and Trump is an ignorant, incurious doofus; both had or have staffers who take their broad-strokes wishes and execute them, sometimes using the autopen, which presidents since Truman have used. The Constitution does not require pardons to be signed, only that they reflect the will of the president, so Biden’s recent averral that all the pardons issued under him reflected and continue to reflect his wishes ought to end it for you. I objected strongly to the January 6 mass pardons and I’m sure Trump didn’t personally review and weigh the facts of every case and sign every pardon document. But I’m calmly letting that go. I advise you to do the same.

Biden wasn’t a drooling incompetent, your claim that “it sure as heck wasn’t him” running the country notwithstanding. Biden had and still has significant agency, his obvious moments of confusion notwithstanding. This “probe” is designed to distract the public and will not end up with any pardons being revoked. And, frankly, I’m surprised that sensible Republicans like yourself are so eagerly buying into it.

Was it blasphemous for Trump to claim that God saved him from the assassin who killed a former firefighter sitting behind him?

Jon Lederhouse — Unlike Republican Speaker and self-proclaimed Christian, Mike Johnson, Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:45 that God "makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust." So, given Jesus' understanding, if a Christian wants to make a case for a miraculous intervention by God, there needs to be a unique suspension of a law of nature or a unique intervention by some angelic being, otherwise, the circumstance is just a normal operation of God's creation. Neither of these unique interventions took place in the Trump shooting. So, apparently Jesus would acknowledge that it is simply a matter of politically religious hypocrisy to claim Trump as "God's man.” Asking how it is possible that a good supreme being can allow depraved people to thrive has been wrestled with for many millennia and cannot be addressed adequately in this kind of forum.

Nancy Meyer -- Why isn’t MAGAs saying that, because no one ever fired shots at Barack Obama, that proves that God liked him better, and wanted him to survive as righteous contrast to his offensive successor? If God really does inflict tragedies on people and then coyly leaves them to guess what he's peeved about, that's a mighty passive-aggressive, sloppy way for an omnipotent being to run a universe.

Here’s a hypothetical: Assume Pat has done me a personal, intentional grave wrong. If I respond by driving 20 miles to his house and blowing up his mailbox under cover of darkness, I've only vented my spleen while giving him no information about who or what has offended him and how he ought to change. So Pat might be motivated to shoot at the goth teenager down the street or to back over a neighbor's rose bush.

Zorn — Attributing any occurrence at all to God’s will is a philosophical and theological trick bag. I’ll leave it at that.

Why is no one calling this decade “The ‘20s”?

Steven K. — I also have not heard references to “the ‘20s.” Maybe it’s because it’s been used so often in reference to the 1920s that we assume the 20th century has some sort of unofficial copyright.

Joe Kusiak— I have a T-shirt that says: “I enjoyed my 20s in the ‘70s much more than I'm enjoying my 70s in the ‘20s.”

Zorn — I’ll be wanting a shirt like that in a few years!

Amazon.com.

Survey says…

From last week’s Picayune Plus:

401 votes

A dissent:

Ann H. — I've become annoyed by the abundance of click polls on so many of my Substack subscriptions. My guess is that responding to a click poll is some measure of "user engagement" which works out to the author's advantage in the Substack environment. I used to always respond. Now I seldom do.

Zorn — I can assure you there is no “user engagement” advantage in the overall Substack environment. These publications are all separate entities and the only meaningful feedback we get are page views and subscriber numbers. So there’s nothing nefarious or sneaky about the click polls.

Unpopular opinions?

These headlines in last Friday’s papers were disheartening:

Hundreds? Oof. It was a bad look for the resistance, which had recently drawn thousands to Loop rallies. Movements need to appear to be growing rather than shrinking.

Now, true, Thursday evening was a lousy time to hold a protest rally — I know it was timed to coincide with the anniversary of Rep. John Lewis' death, but still. It was a work day. "Hundreds" march for marginal causes, niche concerns. And publicity for the event was lacking.

Response to my view was mixed when I posted it to Facebook. Here are some dissents:

Thom Clark — Balderdash. Every effort counts in offsetting the regime’s trashing of American democracy. Are you suggesting the dozen folks who’ve been witnessing every Thursday evening at Pratt & Ridge, or Friday morning at Greenleaf & Sheridan are wasting our time because we don’t have 1200 or 12,000 people showing up?

Matt Greenberger — While I agree Chicago should be turning out hundreds of thousands — even millions —I would never put down any resistance effort. There shouldn't be style points for this stuff. (Full disclosure, I was there and yeah, it wasn't as big as the other marches. But if it got a few more people engaged, it's worth it.)

Cindy McDonald Grau — Unless you were there you shouldn’t complain!

So here’s the question:

Last week’s result

395 votes

This occasional Tuesday feature is intended to highlight opinions that are defensible but may well be unpopular. If you have one to add, leave it in comments or send me an email, but be sure to offer at least a paragraph in defense of your view.

NewsWheel

Inspired by the WordWheel puzzle in the Monday-Friday Chicago Tribune and other papers, this puzzle asks you to identify the missing letter that will make a word or words — possibly proper nouns; reading either clockwise or counterclockwise — related to a story in the news or other current event. The answer is at the bottom of the newsletter.

The week’s best visual jokes

Here are some funny visual images I've come across recently on social media. Enjoy, then evaluate:

There’s still time to vote in the conventional Quip of the Week poll!

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Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise.

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Answer to the NewsWheel puzzle

EMIL BOVE