“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert insisted on announcing that his top-rated program would be canceled — just hours after finding out cash-strapped CBS would not renew his hefty contract, The Post has learned.
The late-night star was told by network brass late Wednesday night that his reported $15 million to $20 million contract would not get picked up and that they were going to pull the plug on the show, according to a well-placed source.
Colbert — who had returned from vacation two days earlier and blasted CBS-parent Paramount Global for settling a high-profile lawsuit with President Trump during his monologue — decided the next morning that he would waste no time in sharing the decision about his fate, the insider added.
“He wanted to tell the world,” the source said. “CBS said OK. They taped with an audience and had to get the news out there before the audience or staff leaked it.”
Colbert broke the news to the shocked studio audience at The Ed Sullivan Theater in New York’s Midtown during taping at 5:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.
“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,” Colbert said to a chorus of boos.
Less than two hours later, CBS sent out a press release that included the taped comments, which would air at 11:35 p.m. ET that night.
A rep for CBS confirmed the network worked with Colbert on rolling out the announcement.
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Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks, who oversees CBS, claimed it was “purely a financial decision” to pull the plug on the late-night staple, first-launched by David Letterman in 1993. Colbert, who took over hosting duties a decade ago, will stay on the air until May of next year.
The Post reported that the show was losing betweek $40 million and $50 million annually, and that advertising had slumped along with overall viewership. Meanwhile, Puck News reported that the show’s annual production cost was a sky-high $100 million.
A source familiar with the situation said that all the late-night shows have been battling paltry viewership and declining ratings, but that Colbert’s show had higher costs, making it hard to justify continuing the program.
“If it was losing money like that, then it had to be canceled,” the source told The Post.
However, several left-leaning pundits and lawmakers speculated that Colbert’s steady diet of anti-Trump rhetoric, including last Monday over the Paramount settlement, played a pivotal role in killing the show.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial sentiment with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. “It’s a ‘big fat bribe,’” Colbert quipped.
“Because it all comes as Paramount’s owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance!”
The settlement of the lawsuit has been viewed as helping pave the way for Trump’s Federal Communications Commission boss Brendan Carr to greenlight Skydance Media’s $8 billion acquisition of Paramount.
CBS has previously denied that ther settlement and merger talks are not connected.
“I’ve lost interest in extreme POVs on either end, but I see this as a chilling of free speech and the timing seems to send a strong message that this is cause and effect for what he said about the settlement,” a CBS staffer told Fox News.
“The CBS leadership could have cloaked it somehow, but made a decision not to.”
On Monday, “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon and other top comedians were expected to rally around Colbert and make a cameo on “The Late Show,” The Post exclusively reported.
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