Cal88 said:
wifeisafurd said:
concordtom said:
wifeisafurd said:
concordtom said:
wifeisafurd said:
concordtom said:
okaydo said:
tequila4kapp said:
okaydo said:
sycasey said:
socaltownie said:
I read that only 20% of tv viewing is network broadcast. My guess is the late show is no longer profitable
Yeah but Colbert still got the best viewership out of all of these shows. Hard to see this decision as anything other than political.
Colbert had 2.5 million viewers. That ain't great, but it's still 2.5 million educated viewers that viewers clamor for.
And only CBS is canceling late-night shows. They decided to stop programming the 12:30 am timeslot and have given it to a reruns of a guy who's so old he performed on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in the 70s.
The important number is profitability, not the 2.5M
Yeah, but they didn't try to do things to make The Late Show more profitable. They didn't cut the staff. Hell, they could've moved to a smaller venue. They didn't try to have Colbert do product placement and advertiser tie-ins, which Kimmel and Fallon do.
So then it's not Colbert who was chit-canned, but his business management unit.
A. lot of profitability is what you can sell adverting for which is why guys like Carson used to veer towards the middle when possible to get not only bigger audiences, but also a greater advertising revenue. demand.https://hbr.org/2018/06/how-liberals-and-conservatives-shop-differently
The other issue is that relative to other forms of entrainment, late night shows require large staffs, expensive sets, live audiences, and often feature high-profile guests that make demands like cars, drivers, 5 star hotels, meals, etc. When a comedian/host can just make a podcast, all this other stuff just doesn't have long term viability. The view that entertainment business is biased against a liberal is rich and not credible. It is biased toward making money however.
Yeah, so, like I said, the business management side of it got fired. Because it's their role to make sure profitability happens.
I suggest why guys like Carson (add Leno, etc.) moved to the middle and that the long run trends show the format makes no financial sense from a cost perspective, and you fire back with the management side got fired. Brilliant. Anyone see the disconnect?
Who's responsibility is it to make sure that the show is put together in a way that can be profitable?
Lots of budgetary pieces to that.
But go ahead, tell me I'm disconnected.
Can your understanding of basic business concepts be anymore dense?
The host won't move the show to the middle to max revenue. How is that in the control of financial management?
Late night cost structure, which is mostly out of the control of the show's management, make the format of these shows not viable against podcasts, and that is for everyone, not just Colbert. Exactly what part of the budgetary process do you change to make the format viable when young audiences instead watch inexpensive to produce podcasts?
Earth to Tom, a basic feature of competitive business is that those with lower revenues and higher costs don't survive. I mean several people here want all networks to continue losing money for some reason lost on me (even money losing pubic broadcasting isn't getting subsidized any more), but no one is blaming the Colbert's financial management team for the show's termination.
Everyone, including the late night hosts, agree that late night is dying and losing money, and then you come in and can't understand why Colbert's management team screwed the pooch. UFB.
Historically speaking, mass media has often been a loss leader and more of a strategic investment than a pure business play. It was more about shaping public opinion and behavior than turning profits. That's why you had MIC investors like GE buying NBC, Westinghouse buying CBS. When Bezos bought up the Washington Post, it wasn't about the profits that outfit generated, it was about an oligarch gaining political influence in DC and beyond.
Colbert did make product placements, perhaps the most notorious product placement of all time, in his promotion of the mRNA vaccines, products that generated hundreds of billions in sales. From that perspective, losses of a few million dollars from bloated late night show production costs were completely insignificant. As well big pharma is far and away the main direct revenue source for network TV.
The main problem with late night shows today is that the concept and format have gone very stale and are largely outdated, and this is compounded by the lack of talent of people like Colbert, Fallon or Kimmel, who require a huge staff of writers to generate marginally funny content. It's a bit like Saturday Night Live, which hasn't had comedians of the caliber of a Chevy Chase, Bill Murray or Eddie Murphy in decades. Stale outdated showbiz bloatware.
There is a of good stuff in here. My two cents:
Mass media used to make a lot of money and print media and certain other forms of media now face increased and disruptive competition due to the internet and other sources and are no longer profitable or at least struggling financially. And yes, in particular some of the money losing print media is bought for personal reasons, such as access, prestige, or whatever.
TV Networks have their problems, but they are public companies (or divisions thereof) at they do report profits, sometimes significant profits, and under GAAP reporting requirements the network division's profits and loss is pubic information. But they still make a lot of money, though they have a lot of debt, which is another discussion.
On a show basis, the network either produces the show or instead purchase shows from producers that they believe will be popular. Either way, there needs to be some level of recovering what is a substantial investment. The major source for that is advertising revenue. In 2024 these commercial breaks run for a total of twenty minutes every hour. In Western markets,
each consumer is worth about 23 cents per hour to the network in advertising revenue. In 2024 average consumer watches television 280 minutes a day, but that is from all sources including streaming. That is a lot of money to be made, but network ad revenue has been going down as viewership drops. There is other miscellaneous revenue such as selling merchandise (e.g., shirts, mugs, and other branded merchandise through typically online stores), sponsorships to brands that want their products featured in television shows, etc. But ad revenue drives the bus.
The big problem has typically been costs (particularly actor costs) in a time of declining revenue, which is why you see less stars on network shows, and more game shows, reality shows, and you should get the picture. But the point being is the more expensive forms of programing where advertising revenues are down, are dying off, and late night shows are going that way. Live sport happens to be one of the areas where ad revenue and eyeballs are not declining. In contrast, with SNL, the audience has dwindled probably became the quality is down, the show is stale (the '70s wants its humor back) and younger viewers don't watch network shows or maybe even "live" TV. But also SNL no longer has the budget to retain high cost talent and writers.
Television networks also sell subscriptions to consumers, and they are making very good money doing so. It seems like THEY ARE MOVING ALL THEIR GOOD SHOWS WITH THEIR BETTER TALENT ONTO THEIR STREAMING PLATFORMS AND LEFT THEIR LIVE TV NETWORKS WITH NOTHING THAT PEOPLE WANT TO WATCH. Just my two cents. But unless consumer habits change, expect something very different on late night TV five years from now as Kimmel and company are predicting.
