The long national nightmare that has Stephen Colbert’s slow-walked cancellation is almost over, but not before the late night host makes a complete fool of himself a few more times.
Last July, CBS announced it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as a cost-cutting measure. The subtext: Colbert had seen ratings plummet for years as he turned the legendary comedy show into an anti-Trump variety program and the Tiffany Network could no longer afford to foot the bill.
But rather than pull the plug immediately, CBS decided to let him keep hosting – and dragging them through the mud at every turn – until the end of this current season. The final episode of the program, which has been on the air since 1993 and hosted by Colbert since 2015, will air May 21.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of System Update, to discuss Colbert’s “pathetic” departure and the demise of late-night television as a whole.
Letterman Returns
Since Colbert’s ouster was announced last summer, Megyn has wondered why he was given such a drawn-out farewell. “Johnny Carson had less of a goodbye when he announced his retirement from The Tonight Show, and he actually was beloved,” she noted.
Carson also ended his program with grace – a virtue that is very clearly lost on Colbert and his predecessor David Letterman. “Stephen Colbert’s bizarre goodbye to late night is finally almost over… but not before he throws a hissy fit temper tantrum with the former host of the CBS program,” Megyn said. “He and Letterman got together to express how very, very angry they are about poor Stephen Colbert’s show getting canceled.”
The OG Late Show host stopped by the Ed Sullivan Theater Thursday to… throw furniture, watermelons, and a cake (yes, really) off the roof at a CBS logo on the ground below like the two full-grown adults that they are.
“I thought this occasion would be sad, but this brings true joy to my heart,” Letterman said. “We are up here for the wanton destruction of CBS property.”
Before the juvenile segment ended, Letterman thanked Colbert ” for everything you’ve done for our country” and offered the following message to the network that employed him for more than two decades: “In the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, motherf-ckers!”
The Fall of Late Night
The airing of grievances was also on full display earlier in the week when fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver joined Colbert on set. Perpetually embattled ABC host Kimmel used the forum to question why Colbert was being forced to defend the existence of late-night TV without any self-awareness for how far the medium has fallen.
Megyn’s team took a look back at where the ratings stood when The Late Show debuted in 1993. “[When Letterman launched], he averaged 7.8 million total viewers and 4.4 million in the key 18- to 49-year-old demo… By the time he handed it off to Colbert, those numbers were down to 2.8 [million],” Megyn explained. “The late night format collapsed while David Letterman was at the helm, and he knew he was handing what was effectively a loser to the next guy.”
While Colbert did see the overall number increase by about a million viewers at the beginning of the first Trump administration, the demo was a measly 520,000. And that proved to be the high point. By the time Trump left office, he was down to 2.6 million total and 226,000 in the demo.
And then there is the financial piece. “[CBS was reportedly] losing $40 million a year [on The Late Show],” Megyn added. “What show would be kept on the air… when it was losing $40 million a year? That would be professional malpractice to leave that show on the air. So, Colbert steps in there with a program that is a shadow of its former self… and certainly Colbert wasn’t the answer. He never got things going.”
What Went Wrong
Given how the media landscape and viewing habits have changed, the demise of The Late Show and late-night television as a whole is not entirely on Colbert or any of the current hosts. But Greenwald said the quality – or lack thereof – of their content certainly hasn’t helped.
“They’re hard to watch,” he said. “I grew up with Johnny Carson. I never really understood, when [I was] a teenager, the appeal of Johnny Carson… but the reason was because it was actual genuine humor and he never took himself too seriously. He thought of himself as a comedian, which has an important role in society… to make people laugh.”
While Greenwald acknowledged good comedy often does have a “politicized aspect to it” where “you poke at taboos” and “delve into sensitive subjects in a way that’s unexpected,” today’s crop of late-night hosts have taken it to a new extreme.
“These guys have all – like so many of our institutions, like so many in the age of Trump – convinced themselves that they have some transcendent role. No, they’re not just comedians,” Greenwald said. “[But] they’ve completely turned themselves into basically a celebrity guest version of whatever is on MSNBC… They have broken the whole notion of late-night TV, which is the place where people used to be able to gather no matter what your religion or race or politics were.”
While Kimmel and Fallon are reportedly planning to be dark on Colbert’s final night, Greenwald said they are not as brave or subversive as they think they are. “They are trying to now depict themselves as these, like, hardcore rebels and dissidents, radicals who are saying F-you to the man,” Greenwald noted. “These are people who have made extreme fortunes working for large corporations their entire lives and now, at the very end with their bank accounts all stuffed with millions and millions of dollars from these corporations, they’re going to feign like they are the common man giving the middle finger to the corporation. It’s all such a fraud… and it really sickens me.”
Megyn’s Advice
Ultimately, Megyn’s biggest issue is with how Colbert has handled himself since the cancellation was announced last year. “Cry me a river,” she said. “Would you take it like a man? Honestly, where are your testicles? This is so humiliating. We know, you got canceled. Be a man… This is pathetic.”
“When I got canned from NBC, everyone was calling me a racist. They were humiliating me everywhere,” Megyn recalled. “Yes, I got a little teary the day after because it was overwhelming. That was it… I didn’t blubber and blubber on. I didn’t ask everybody to feel so sorry for me… nor would I have had they given me the opportunity to stay on the air.”
Her advice for Colbert as he enters his final week: “Take it like a man… Stop this. Put your big boy pants on and exit with grace. You’re humiliating yourself, truly. You are humiliating mankind. I don’t want my sons to see this behavior. This is so embarrassing. You didn’t get cancer; you got canceled. It happens. Grow up.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Greenwald by tuning in to episode 1,318 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.