Opinion | CBS Cancels Itself, Not Just Colbert

Stephen Colbert began his late-night career on CBS by breaking the established broadcast-network model for what a host should be. Earlier, The Colbert Report on Comedy Central ran as an ongoing sketch in which he played a caricature of a self-obsessed conservative blowhard. He interviewed guests in character and required them to be prepared for a jerk. For years, he gave interviews only as that persona, relying on everyone to understand the fake-news joke. The performance was a major political satire hit for nine years. His move to The Late Show in 2014 seemed natural, but CBS expected him to abandon the hard-core point-of-view political comedy that had driven his success.

"His previous experience, The Colbert Report (pronounced as though on TV Francaise) on Comedy Central, was a never-ending sketch, which had Mr. Colbert playing a caricature of a self-obsessed, blowhard conservative commentator. He even conducted interviews on the show as the character, compelling him to tell his guests to be prepared for a jerk. Before CBS, Mr. Colbert had almost never appeared as himself on television, nor most anywhere else."

"For years he gave interviews about the show completely in character, a guy who could not have been more opposite to the real Mr. Colbert in personality or political views. Everyone had to be in on the fake news joke. It was a masterly, one-of-a-kind performance, one of the sharpest, most astute political satires ever produced for a mainstream audience and a hit. It lasted for nine years."

"His recruitment by CBS to succeed the legendary David Letterman as host of The Late Show in 2014 made complete sense to me; he was a major comic star and he wanted the job. At the time, I was convinced it was a perfect match, and one sure to be easier than what Mr. Colbert had just pulled off. All he had to do this time was be the real Stephen Colbert."

"What I didn't anticipate was that the foundation of Mr. Colbert's success was something new to late night: hard-core, point-of-view political comedy. He had developed it while contributing to The Daily Show on Comedy Central. A broadcast network, steeped in the traditional both sides style of Johnny Carson, was going to expect him to drop that as well as the character."

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