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Jimmy Kimmel pulled indefinitely by ABC for Charlie Kirk comments.
Late night talk show hosts have waned from their glorious Letterman days, but boomers still care about then enough that they're still a scalp worth scraping off the skull. It's hard to think of a prominent figure on the right that would be equal in stature - Gina Carano? Piers Morgan? Roseanne Barr? nothing like him - if only for the fact that the entertainment industry is so aligned to the left. Indeed, even during the height of the progressive cancel culture era, it was liberal icons like Louis CK and JK Rowling that felt the heat.
If such a big figure can fall, who will be next?
With Colbert going off the air, and with the upcoming FCC hearings on Twitch, Reddit, Discord, and Steam, one can only anticipate the prizes that are coming. Destiny and Hasan are obvious trophies that the right would love to claim, but I have no doubt that the powerjanitors of Reddit are quaking in their boots. How many leftist/liberal commentators have made snarky comments on social media, as of late? This is the reddest of the red meat, dripping with blood, raw. The long march through the institutions has only just begun, and for the populist right base, it'll be a enjoyable hike indeed.
Why are these people paid so much for such mediocre jokes and commentary. Random people on twitter have better insights for free. Yeah, I get the economic argument (people tune in to see him deliver the jokes, not a random person), but the occupation of 'late night TV host' has long outlived its usefulness .CBS balking at paying $40 million a year for Colbert is an indication of this.
These people are surprisingly expendable. Many celebs were axed during Trump's first term. We're not talking Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Sam Altman here , where a trillion dollar company hinges on the directive of a single person. Right wing cancel culture, like the doge cuts, is much more methodical , thorough and organized than haphazard like how the left does it . They , the left, forgot the mass cancellations during the 2001-2006 about Iraq, 9/11 and so on, like Bill Maher's 9/11 comment that led to his cancellation. They got too cocky. It's like, "we're cancelling everyone to make up for the past 10 years"
The viewership has decreased, but many people still find these shows to be a comfy way to unwind at the end of the day. It's not so much about the insights, it's about the warm fuzzy feeling of listening to the same person over and over again, and with many of the hosts, also the warm fuzzy feeling of having one's political beliefs reaffirmed. The target audience are not the kind of people who are highly online and so watch Hasan or Nick Fuentes or whoever instead to get their comfy unwinding and their political affirmation. It's kind of like asking why a bunch of people watch CNN or FOX news even though there are a bunch of people online who provide equally entertaining political content. Just a different demographic.
As for why they get paid so much. Well, my hunch is that it's just because mainstream media is notoriously conservative in their economic decisions. Just like they pump out endless remakes and sequels, they also would rather stick with a known host and pay him a lot of money than risk trying to elevate some relative unknown to the same position. This might not work for too much longer, but it worked for a long time.
Ultimately, though, that is pretty much the reason why these hosts are being cancelled. It's become clear to top execs since last november that Trump's supporters, even if they can't see them in their filter bubbles, are real people that exist and are not consuming their product. Late Night shows are supposed to be comfy, to everyone. Sure, the efforts they had done to be fairer since the election, on their own, wouldn't be enough to bring back Republicans, not for a few years at least. But when these media execs see one of their star hosts saying very un-comfy things about half the country, what's going through their mind is probably some variation on "No fucking wonder they want nothing to do with us!"
Those viewers aren't coming back. NFL football ratings bounced back after dropping the politics stuff, but that was because there was massive demand for the product and no real substitute.
Sure. Agreement with this is more, not less, market reason to cancel.
Media market analytics tends to go by national/regional demographics, not partisan demographics. Flat cost decisions (such as hiring) that might make sense if you view yourself in a 320 million market make a bit less sense if you're in a 'merely' 160 million market due to a political filter.
If the 160 lost market might be recovered, you fire the excess and bring in new help. But if the 160 market can't be recovered, you still fire the excess.
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