What a one, two punch in the gut.
Stephen Colbert announced Thursday night that CBS is ending his Late Show next May hours before the U.S. House of Representatives approved President Donald Trump’s request to cancel its previously approved funding for public broadcasting.
I can’t help but think the two are related. Both smell of appeasing our authoritarian president who has kept his campaign promise of retribution by going after government agencies, universities, the Kennedy Center and the media — ABC, CBS, Associated Press, the Voice of America, Des Moines Register, and now National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. At VOA headquarters the lobby TVs have replaced VOA news reports with “the far-right One American News Network, the latter infamous for peddling conspiracy theories,” says Steve Herman, the Cincinnati native and former VOA reporter.
Of all the late-night TV hosts, Colbert has been Trump’s toughest critic. Returning from a two-week vacation Monday, he blasted CBS’ $16 million settlement of Trump’s lawsuit over edits to last October’s 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Legal and journalism experts called the lawsuit “frivolous,” and easily winnable in court for CBS. Colbert called it “a big fat bribe” paid by CBS whose parent company, Paramount, is seeking approval from the Trump administration for a multi-million dollar merger with Skydance Media.
Two days later, Colbert was told that CBS was cancelling his top-rated Late Show in “purely a financial decision.”
This reminds me of Fox News Channel firing controversial talk show host Tucker Carlson days after Fox News paid a $787-million settlement two years ago to Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the network for promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election.
As his audience booed, Colbert opened his show Thursday by saying, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
CBS executives said the decision was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount. Our admiration, affection and respect for the talents of Stephen Colbert and his incredible team made this agonizing decision even more difficult.”
CBS re-entered late-night in 1992 when it launched The Late Show with David Letterman, after Letterman was passed over by NBC as Johnny Carson’s replacement in favor of Jay Leno. Colbert took over the program in 2015, and has been No. 1 in late night for nine years.
However, with the shift to streaming from broadcast and cable, the profit margin for shows apparently has narrowed to the point that CBS cannot sustain the Late Show’s 200 employees. (NBC laid off the Late Night with Seth Meyers house band a year ago in a budget cut.)
The stunning Colbert show news also prompted speculation that Jon Stewart’s Daily Show on Paramount’s Comedy Central also “could be under growing scrutiny from executives at Skydance Media. David Ellison, who leads Skydance, has projected an image of being intrigued by the politics espoused by President Donald Trump, who Colbert and Stewart routinely skewer in monologues and commentary,” Variety notes.
Before The Late Show ended at 12:35 a.m., the House voted to rescind $9 billion in appropriations it had previously made for public broadcasting and foreign aid for fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1, and fiscal year 2027. Trump’s “rescission” request, to reverse authorized Congressional spending, was opposed by only two Republicans, Mike Turner of Dayton, Ohio, and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
The bill withdraws about $1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which was created by a bipartisan vote in 1967 — that supports NPR, PBS and public radio and TV stations. It also defunds about $8 billion in foreign assistance for the dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Tom Jones, senior media writer for the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization, called the rescission vote “a dark day for journalism, the free press, and, perhaps most importantly, everyday Americans who are going to feel the effects of what happened Thursday.”
This morning public broadcasting managers across the nation are trying to figure out their way through this new reality. Cincinnati Public Radio receives only about 5% of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. However, CPB also underwrites music performance rights for all public radio and television stations, “as well as the cost of the Public Radio Satellite System, which we and all other public radio stations use to distribute and receive programs from NPR, American Public Media, the Public Radio Exchange, CBC, BBC, and other distributors. We have yet to learn of the financial implications for us resulting from the termination of CPB support in these areas,” says Rich Eiswerth, Cincinnati Public Radio CEO and president.
The websites for Cincinnati and Dayton's WCET-TV this week posted this message: “SILENCED. If Congress claws back federal funding, the signal may stay on — but the local programming and services our community relies on could vanish.”
Public radio stations in smaller markets and rural areas will be hit the hardest. Ohio University’s WOUB Public Media — which serves Southeastern Ohio with radio stations in Athens, Chillicothe, Ironton, Zanesville and Cambridge, and TV stations in Athens and Cambridge — says it is “devastated but not deterred” by losing $1.4 million annually. “We recognized that there will be changes coming, both programmatically and operationally, as the capacity for us to locally raise the $1.4M lost from our CPB grant every year may not be possible.”
Poynter’s Angela Fu and Sophie Endrud report that station closures would hurt NPR and PBS, “which receive dues and fees from local stations within their network. At NPR, fees from member stations make up roughly 31% of the budget, and at PBS, that figure is 61%. Public broadcasters that survive CPB’s defunding, either national or local, may have to cut programming and execute layoffs. That could ultimately lead to non-news shows feeling the effects — such as kids shows, music programs and documentaries.”
I’m not surprised by Republicans’ blind loyalty to Trump as he dismantles government agencies that Congress created. But I’m amazed by the tsunami of misinformation, and I guess I shouldn’t, given Trump’s well documented lying and what passes for news on the Fox News Channel and other far right-wing “news” outlets.
Speaking in support of the cuts, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) said “the overwhelming majority” of public broadcasters “now serves as a megaphone for partisan left-wing activism.”
Really? Where’s the partisan left-wing activism on Finding Your Roots? Antiques Road Show? Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood? Rick Steves’ Europe? The Great British Baking Show? This Old House? Our Ohio? The Lawrence Welk Show?
Schmitt certainly could claim that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is mostly partisan left-wing activism. But I figure that most Trump supporters are watching Gutfield! or something else on Fox News, Newsmax, One News America, Fox Business or the Joe Rogan, Laura Loomer or Charlie Kirk podcasts — and getting their impression of public broadcasting shows from there, not from actually watching PBS.
As Poynter’s Jones wrote today:
“Can you find a story here or there on programs such as PBS’s NewsHour or NPR’s All Things Considered that could be perceived as skewing left? Perhaps. No news organization is perfect. But such stories are extremely rare and certainly not intentionally biased.
“Now, do those news programs do stories that are completely fair and accurate in reporting the facts, which Trump and the right do not like? Absolutely. But an administration going after those networks because it doesn’t like their coverage and programming should be deeply concerning to the public. In fact, anything that targets a free and open press — a pillar of a functioning democracy — should be alarming.
“To keep eliminating or suing or criticizing or defunding media outlets because you don’t like the coverage is the type of thing you see in places where the only media available is state run. In those places, the state media isn’t journalism. It’s propaganda.”
Journalism — the pursuit of the truth — is more important now than ever because our president has a problem with the truth. This week he said Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell was appointed by Biden. (Trump appointed Powell in 2017). Remember when Trump said Ukraine started the war with Russia? Or when Trump stated he had made 200 tariff deals so far this year? He’s just as disconnected to the truth now as he was in his first term, when Trump made 30, 573 falsehoods — or about 21 erroneous claims a day — according to The Washington Post.
We need journalists, more than ever, doing their jobs despite the fear of retribution from a petulant president, or the lack of support from the corporate overlords of their news organizations. When people post on social media that all journalists and the major TV networks are biased, I have one simple response: “Prove it!” All the journalists I've ever known in Greater Cincinnati have been objective and honest in reporting the best possible truth they can determine under their deadline constraints.
I expect Colbert will find a network or streaming platform to continue his show. The same for Stewart, if Paramount or Skydance pulls the plug.
The road ahead will be much harder for public television and radio stations.
It’s a very sad day.
John Kiesewetter’s reporting is independent. Cincinnati Public Radio only edits his stories for style and grammar.
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