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Two weeks in the past, when Paramount cancelled “The Late Present with Stephen Colbert,” insiders in Hollywood and Washington alike deemed the transfer suspicious: Colbert had simply known as his mum or dad firm’s payout to Trump a “huge fats bribe” on air. Paramount, for its half, claims that the choice was purely monetary—Colbert’s present is shedding forty million {dollars} a 12 months. However each the political and financial explanations reveal how the panorama of late evening has modified since Johnny Carson’s day. On this episode of Critics at Giant, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz contemplate Colbert’s physique of labor and the state of the style extra usually, from the so-called late-night wars of the nineties by means of to the trendy problem of constructing comedy in a rustic the place nothing feels humorous anymore. “Late-night internet hosting is an artwork, nevertheless it’s additionally enterprise. So, in case your job is to get as many eyeballs on you as is humanly attainable, what do you do?” Schwartz says. “It’s not straightforward to have enjoyable with the information, as it’s. And in the event you are having enjoyable with it, one thing might very nicely be mistaken.”
Learn, watch, and pay attention with the critics:
“Strangers with Sweet” (1999-2000)
“The Each day Present” (1996-)
“The Late Present with Stephen Colbert” (2015-26)
“The Staying Energy of the ‘S.N.L.’ Machine” (The New Yorker)
“Classes from ‘Sesame Road’ ” (The New Yorker)
“The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson” (1962-92)
“David Letterman’s Revolutionary Comedy,” by Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker)
“The Colbert Rapport,” by Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker)
“Carpool Karaoke” (2017-23)
“What the Cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Present’ Means,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)
“After Midnight” (2024-25)
New episodes drop each Thursday. Observe Critics at Giant wherever you get your podcasts.
