Steve Krakauer is a NewsNation contributor and executive producer of ‘The Megyn Kelly Show.’ He previously worked at CNN, TheBlaze, NBC and Fox News.
A rare and consequential moment happened on late-night television last week, which is notable because these sorts of occurrences barely get mentioned in 2025. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld, who previously hosted a late-night show himself before being promoted to prime time in 2023, stopped by NBC’s “Tonight Show” for a lengthy – and very funny – interview with Jimmy Fallon. The two joked about their first meeting – a hilarious story featuring a lot of alcohol and a random New York City bar – and shared a nice moment about Greg’s mom. As expected, the Acela Media hated it. “How dare Jimmy Fallon platform a cable news host who doesn’t properly hate Donald Trump!”
This moment pairs well with what’s happening across the crusty old legacy dial on CBS, as Stephen Colbert is currently engaged in a whiny on-air temper tantrum as he milks the final nine months out of a reported $15 million-dollar contract before his network not only cancels his version of “The Late Show” but shuts down the franchise entirely. The program reportedly has more than 200 staff and is losing the network more than $40 million per year. It is, by any standard, a failure. It should be no surprise it’s going away.
But Colbert has used this moment, in partnership with his buddies in the corporate press, to position himself as the martyr who fought the big bad Trump on behalf of democracy. On the heels of CBS parent company Paramount agreeing to pay Trump’s future gold-plated library $16 million to settle his lawsuit against the curious Kamala Harris interview editing by “60 Minutes,” and as Paramount merges with Skydance to the tune of $8 billion, effective last week, it’s a convenient excuse for Colbert to employ that his #Resistance activism is what tipped his exit from the airwaves. But that ignores the reality – Stephen Colbert abandoned the core principle of late-night comedy: While he remained hosting a late-night show, he no longer practiced “comedy.”
Colbert did this to himself – his demise is thanks to a series of self-inflicted wounds. And while some is simply a sign of the times and of changing viewing habits, a greater cause of his cancellation is the way his brain and brand have been poisoned by his obsession with, and hatred of, the guy who currently occupies the Oval Office once again.
It’s, of course, not just his Trump Derangement Syndrome. Fallon, who shared a laugh with the enemy last week, hasn’t gone completely off the ideological deep end but has seen his ratings crater as well. In fact, Colbert’s moment of defiance has earned him a ratings bump, topping Fallon and fellow Trump addict Jimmy Kimmel over on ABC combined last week in total viewers. But while an average of 3 million viewers tuned in to Colbert, just 304,000 of those were under the age of 50. So yes, a lot of old people have enjoyed Colbert’s performative persecution, but the lack of relevance with the key demographic is another sign of the show’s and format’s failings.
Colbert is hardly alone in the media landscape. CBS News is in turmoil over the Trump “blackmail” settlement, but like Colbert, no longer prioritizing making people laugh – and, notably, making all people laugh, including the millions more people who supported Trump over Kamala in 2024 – many establishment media journalistic mainstays have spent the past 10 years eschewing journalism. The news division in the corporate behemoth shared by Colbert spent the past year finding new ways to embarrass itself, from a shockingly terrible VP debate performance to a Sunday show host who practiced anti-speech activism in praising censorship in the service of some general anti-conservative point of view.
With each passing meltdown – The Washington Post revolt after owner Jeff Bezos blocked a Kamala endorsement, an embarrassing ABC interview that got that network to pay Trump to settle a defamation suit – the mainstream media power structure is being exposed as “Zombie Elites.” They once held power and sway but have been watching it erode because of decisions they made to limit their broad appeal.
If your show costs $100 million to make, as Colbert’s reportedly does, you have a financial obligation to be large, to reach the widest audience possible. The same goes for the expensive studio sets and swanky green rooms and car services that go along with the broadcast networks. But these institutions chose a different path – they chose specialization and alienation. They wanted a lack of diversity of thought. They wanted to appeal to their friends and buddies. They failed, and now they’re feeling the effects of this failure.
Colbert and his news colleagues are dinosaurs, and the meteor has arrived. An extinction-level event is coming. But that doesn’t exempt them from expediting their demise with the choices they made over the past decade. Colbert can complain all he wants every night for the next nine months – he has himself, not Trump, to blame for his farewell whinefest.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of NewsNation.