Paramount and CBS must answer one simple question

Timing is everything.

The news that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026 has focused on whether his termination was part of a “deal” (implicit or explicit) to get Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of the pending merger between CBS parent company Paramount and Skydance Media. If so, it was another “bend-the-knee” moment in the media’s ongoing capitulation to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attack on democracy’s foundational institutions.

But the timing of the announcement itself is raises a critical unanswered question: Why now? It was either pandering to Trump, management’s incompetence, or both.

The cast of characters

Skydance owner David Ellison is the son of Oracle billionaire founder Larry Ellison, Trump’s friend and supporter.

Through her family’s holding company National Amusements, Sheri Redstone owns a controlling interest in Paramount and is a member of its board of directors.

If the FCC approves the Skydance-Paramount merger announced in July 2024, Skydance will pay National Amusements $2.4 billion.

Colbert has become one of Trump’s fiercest TV critics. Beginning in 2016 and continuing for nine consecutive seasons, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been the highest-rated program in its time slot.

The timeline

• In September 2024, Trump urged CBS to fire Colbert.

• Days before the 2024 election, Trump filed a frivolous lawsuit accusing CBS of bias in broadcasting a 60 Minutes interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The complaint alleged that the edited interview and associated programming were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” in Harris’ favor.

• Prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said that “the First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation.” Harvard Law School Professor Rebecca Tushnet called it “ridiculous junk and should be mocked.” Attorney Charles Tobin warned, “This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”

• February 6, 2025: Redstone told the Paramount board she wanted to settle Trump’s lawsuit.

• April 13: Trump said CBS “should lose their license” and he hoped that his appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr “will impose the maximum fine and punishment.”

• April 22: Bill Owens, the producer of 60 Minutes — a 30-year veteran of CBS — resigned with this warning: “[O]ver the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”

• April 27: 60 Minutes co-anchor Scott Pelley praised Owens and offered an unprecedented on-air rebuke of Paramount: “Stories we’ve pursued for 57 years are often controversial — lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration. Bill made sure they were accurate and fair — he was tough that way. But our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”

• May 4: 60 Minutesaired a segment quoting prominent attorneys criticizing Trump for unlawfully targeting Big Law firms. In response, Trump threatened to sue CBS for defamation again, but he never did.

• July 1: CBS settled Trump’s frivolous 60 Minutes lawsuit regarding the Harris interview by contributing $16 million toward Trump’s future presidential library.

• July 14: In Colbert’s first appearance after a two-week vacation, he returned to The Late Show and joked that Paramount’s settlement with Trump was “a big fat bribe.”

• July 15: Skydance’s David Ellison was in Washington to meet with FCC chairman Carr and other FCC officials. Later the company said Ellison “discussed Skydance’s commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’ editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers.”

• July 17: During the taping of The Late Show, Colbert informed his audience that CBS had informed him the prior evening that he and his program had been terminated, effective May 2026.

• July 18: Trump wrote on Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings…”

The other possibility

Already swirling in controversy over the departure of 60 Minutesproducer and settling the Trump case, Paramount and CBS anticipated the outrage and skepticism that terminating Colbert and The Late Show would generate.

Contemporaneously with Colbert’s firing, George Cheeks (co-CEO of Paramount Global and president and CEO of CBS), Amy Reisenbach (president of CBS Entertainment), and David Stapf (president of CBS Studios) issued a statement declaring: “This is 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.”

Following the announcement, “leaked” reports from anonymous CBS sources and “sources close to the network” suggested that The Late Show was losing millions of dollars yearly.

Maybe it was. But that argument proves too much.

“[T]wo people familiar with the show’s finances” toldThe New York Times anonymously that the show “was racking up losses of tens of millions of dollars a year.”

If true, the losses weren’t a new problem. And there’s no evidence that CBS gave Colbert, who produces the top-rated show, an opportunity to explore less expensive production possibilities.

So why announce cancellation of the program 10 months before it would leave the air in mid-2026?

It’s possible — but unlikely — that Colbert’s contract required 10-months’ advance notice of termination. But if so, CBS’ failure to include such context to blunt the otherwise apparent connection to the merger was a profound management failure.

On the other hand, if Colbert’s contract did not require 10 months advance notice prior to termination, the announcement was either: 1) one more effort to grease the Paramount-Skydance merger skids by “bending the knee” to Trump; or 2) a different management failure that intensified the preexisting cloud over CBS’ integrity.

Either way, Paramount and CBS owe shareholders and viewers an answer to a simple question: Why now?

Their first press release was an exercise in obfuscation.

• Steven J. Harper is an attorney, adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School, and author of several books, including Crossing Hoffa — A Teamster's Story and The Lawyer Bubble — A Profession in Crisis. He has been a regular columnist for Moyers on Democracy, Dan Rather's News and Guts, and The American Lawyer. Follow him at https://thelawyerbubble.com.