Not Pretty

 Remember just a few days back when I suggested that you might all be concerned about my well=being if one day you should stop by this corner of Al Gore's Internet and find it empty? At that time I was practicing a little technique called "hyperbole" in which a writer uses exaggerated statements not meant to be taken at their full face value. For those of you who don't "write," you may experience this in your everyday life when you are "just kidding." 

I am currently kidding just a little less about this becoming a blank corner of cyberspace. It comes about as Stephen Colbert, host of the Columbia Broadcasting System's program The Late Show, begins the slow ten month slide into oblivion. Previous iterations of this move has seen networks shuffle in fresh blood to the challenging apres-news slot on weeknights. This usually ends up with the cast and crew of the old guard being shown the door while some brash newcomer comes waltzing in to set up shop behind the desk with a brand new band and the opportunity for celebrities to explain their new movies, shows, books or failed relationships. 

There is a natural cycle to these things. 

That cycle ends as the "front office," as late night host David Letterman used to put it, is going scorched earth on The Late Show. No new host. No new desk. No new band. No more Late Show. The suits insisted this was, "purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night." They called Colbert irreplaceable and said the show's ending was "not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount." 

"Other matters happening at Paramount." You mean like the merger with Skydance Media? The one that caused CBS to pay out sixteen million dollars to pay off a frivolous lawsuit brought by the former NBC employee who ended up winning the 2024 election in spite of the editing of an interview that took place on Sixty Minutes. Many felt this was Paraount, the owners of CBS, selling out Sixty Minutes and the First Amendment to grease the wheels at the FCC so that the merger could take place. The FCC that is controlled, as much as anything the former game show host controls, by the "president." 

This payout was referred to as "a big fat bribe" by Paramount employee (checks notes), one Stepehn Colbert. Just a couple of nights later, Mister Colbert got the call from "the home office." That was right about the time that Paramount employee (checks notes again) Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert's former boss at The Daily Show, began to ponder his own future as part of Skydance Media. The aforementioned "future" does not appear to be bright for a talk show host who has been even more openly critical of the former game show host than is protege. 

Which makes things back in South Park just as tenuous. The animated series about the periodically whimsical and sometimes scatological adventures of a bunch of kids in a moderately fictional town in Colorado is also under scrutiny as billions of dollars get shoveled around in order to turn one little company into one great big one. If you're part of that "home office," then you would rather that things were easy and compliant. 

That is not the best way to foster free speech. As a matter of fact, that's a really great way to shut it down. People are losing their jobs because of it. The Late Show, or as we may now refer to it, The late Late Show was the highest rated show in its time slot this past year. How many minutes before they come for Kimmel and Fallon? It seems likely that after being forcefed the news of the day, Americans will be subjected to infomercials for gold sneakers or perfume that smells like golf towels. The powers that be like to toss around the phrase, "changing demograpic." I believe this is mostly true if their target is the TV that never gets turned off at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

When comedy is outlawed, only outlaws will do their standup in the lounge by the airport. 

Get mad, America.