Another Unreliable Narrative

O’Leary: Only a moron would tell the president to F off before he gets his check. Okay, so what's going to happen now, in my opinion, is tomorrow, CBS will fire him… pic.twitter.com/wKAB1PC8fP

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 23, 2025

And that’s the curious thing, as Keith Olbermann pointed out. Stephen Colbert was “fired” by CBS, reportedly (reported by Colbert, AFAIK), because he criticized the CBS settlement with Trump over the “60 Minutes” interview, calling it a “bribe” on his show. The assumption is that Trump pressured CBS to get rid of Colbert. Trump certainly gloated over Colbert’s contract coming to an end. But why, then, is Colbert working for the next 43 weeks? Why is he going to do 215 more shows? Why isn’t Colbert off the air by now?

Olbermann thinks Colbert was let go because the handwriting is in the wall. The audience for late night tv talk shows has collapsed. “Late night” being midnight (central time, my standard of reference) shows. Olbermann points out that when Johnny Carson ruled the after nightly news time slot, there wasn’t anybody else to compete with him. Carson was it. There wasn’t enough audience for anyone else. Today, Olbermann goes on, the key demographic TeeVee needs (young people spending money. Old people like your humble host have bought most of the consumer goods they want to/need.) is no longer watching late night TeeVee. So Colbert’s show can’t pay for itself. The end was inevitable.

I don’t have any expertise in this, but I am noting that the two narrators here are Colbert and Trump. And I think Trump is just gloating and taking credit because that’s what a malignant narcissist does. Certainly Trump takes credit for things that have never happened; so we can’t accept what he says about this.

And Colbert? Well, he’s using this to stay relevant. For the next 43 weeks people are going to be tuning in to see how outrageous Colbert is going to be now. He’s already announced that “the gloves are off,” so he’s promising gladiatorial entertainment. I mean, he’s got a dog in this fight, and a reason to get as much attention as he can while he can.  As Olbermann said: what’s CBS going to do now? Fire him?

CBS is probably looking for Colbert’s audience to grow, too. After all, what do they have to put in that time slot who’s going to bring in a bigger, long term audience?

O’Leary on Colbert: I'll do it for them. I'd fire that guy in four seconds if I were running the show. They're gone. And then let him litigate for his cash. If he's worth 20, 30, 40, let him wait 12 years through litigation and hire his own lawyers. That guy is dumb. pic.twitter.com/6vPJ7wbhrI

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 23, 2025

Obviously CBS didn’t do that. 

O’Leary on Colbert: He just insulted his bosses. Like what is this guy?! Whack him, Whack him pic.twitter.com/Sd8OMGcbQV

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 23, 2025

Gee, maybe I should see this guy Colbert and find out why CBS didn’t whack him.