ABC’s Live host Jimmy Kimmel sat with Variety and railed against CBS canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, President Donald Trump, and media reporting that widely concluded Colbert’s show was losing tens of millions for CBS and its former parent Paramount.
“I just want to say that the idea that Stephen Colbert’s show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical,” Kimmel said in reaction to reports on knowledge emanating from CBS insiders that said Colbert’s show was losing between $40 to $50 million annually (figures Colbert did not deny).
Kimmel said “these insiders” talking about how much money Colbert’s show loses “seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees, which number in the hundreds of millions — probably in total billions — and you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows.”
“There’s just not a snowball’s chance in hell that that’s anywhere near accurate,” Kimmel continued. “Suddenly he’s losing $40 million a year? I will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren’t making any money — and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now. Who knows what’s true? All I know is they keep paying us — and that’s kind of all you need to know.”
Kimmel, who campaigned for Democrats in the 2024 election, also suggested Paramount’s merger with Skydance was approved on the condition that Colbert’s show be axed, equating it to “silencing comedians, commentators, whatever you want to call people.”
“If Joe Biden had used his muscle to get Sean Hannity kicked off the air, you may be surprised to learn that I would not support that,” Kimmel said. “I would, in fact, support Sean Hannity in that situation, because I thought one of the founding principles of this country was free speech. But people don’t seem to care about protecting it unless you agree with them.”
Elsewhere in the interview, which Variety says occurred in mid-July (around the time President Trump certainly getting under Kimmel skin, predicting ABC would cancel the left-wing, late-night comic “next”), Kimmel said the current political climate under Trump may, in his view, be shifting away from the president and his agenda. His Evidence?
“I saw him [Trump] get booed at the WWE event the other night, and it really cheered me up,” Kimmel said. “Like, you know what? If Trump is getting booed at wrestling, America is starting to catch on.”
Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know About Trump. Order your copy today. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter and instagram@jeromeehudson
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