Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Was Canceled. Paramount Global’s Stock Isn’t.

Monday night will be Stephen Colbert’s first appearance on the show since the cancellation announcement. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Last Thursday, comedian Stephen Colbert told viewers across the country that his late night show on CBS—ranked #1 in its time slot for nine straight seasons—would end next May. Audience members booed.

“Yeah, I share your feelings,” Colbert said in response.

Monday night’s “The Late Show” will be Colbert’s first appearance since the cancellation announcement. Viewers may tune in to hear his opening monologue, but investors in Paramount Global, the channel’s parent company, may not be that concerned: his eventual exit is unlikely to hit the stock.

What’s driving the stock now is the pending merger between Paramount and entertainment production company Skydance Media. One provision allocates $15 a share to holders of Paramount’s Class B shares. Since the start of the year, the stock is up 25%.

“The operating expenses and the revenue is only roughly 1% of the total TV media division of Paramount and that’s one of the three segments at Paramount, so it really shouldn’t be doing much to the stock,” David Joyce, Seaport Research Partners senior equity analyst, told Barron’s.

Nearly three weeks before the Colbert news, Trump and Paramount Global sealed a $16 million settlement for a lawsuit last year by the president, who argued that Paramount’s newsmagazine program “60 Minutes” had doctored an interview during the 2024 presidential campaign with then-Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

On the show, Colbert has criticized the Trump administration with a string of jabs in his monologues. He blasted Paramount’s settlement, calling it “a big fat bribe” in his monologue three days before the cancellation announcement.

The cancellation has rattled fans, sparking a wave of criticism against the potential chilling effect on free speech. Paramount, however, said the reason was a “purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” according to a July 18 press release. The show’s profitability has declined in recent years, losing roughly $40 million a year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Paramount has tightened its overall expenses, announcing last month it would lay off 3% of its workforce. After Paramount announced its merger with Skydance last year, executives said in a town hall they would cut $500 million in costs to pay off debt.

“The fact that they will be cutting some losses here and there, that’s something that would be helping to satisfy investors who are seeking the revenue and cost synergies that were being promised when they announced this deal,” says Joyce.

Paramount kicked off its fiscal year pretty strong. This May, the media and entertainment company reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that exceeded Wall Street expectations. Paramount posted adjusted earnings of 29 cents a share on revenue of $7.19 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet called for the company to disclose earnings of 25 cents a share on revenue of $7.09 billion.

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