Media Meltdown and also Media Bias 101

[CMRivdogs]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Neither are major news operations.

Fox News is not major? Someone please inform the Murdoch's 

Newsmax is in 48 markets, reaches about 40 million people. Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta are not major?

Edited July 30 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

And by the way Sinclair owns 185 TV stations in 86 markets. While they do carry the so called "major" news networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) their owner and local bend is conservative. Why aren't their licenses being challenged or questioned? 

[chasfh]

44 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Fox News is not major? Someone please inform the Murdoch's 

Newsmax is in 48 markets, reaches about 40 million people. Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta are not major?

Neither of them are actual news operations, especially Newsmax. They are opinion and entertainment vehicles.

EDIT: Also, just wondering, how is Newsmax local to Philadelphia, San Francisco, et al? How does that work?

Edited July 30 by chasfh

[CMRivdogs]

Just now, chasfh said:

Neither of them are actual news operations, especially Newsmax. They are opinion and entertainment vehicles.

I agree, but they advertise themselves as "news" providers, much like most "news" radio stations that primarily carry talk show. 

Maybe I should file suits against these folks. 

Need to start a go fund me first

[mtutiger]

6 hours ago, chasfh said:

CBS is going to become the Newsweek.com of major news operations.

Unironically yes 

[chasfh]

FWIW:

Too Much TV Exclusive: Reports Of 'Late Show's' $40 Million Annual Loss Are 'Bull****'

 

I am shocked to discover that unnamed network sources might be trying to spin a story.

Rick Ellis Jul 31

 

IS 'THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT' REALLY LOSING $40 MILLION A YEAR? 

In the days that followed the cancellation of the CBS late night talker The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, sources that appear to be at CBS and its parent Paramount Global fed a steady stream of background quotes to eager industry reporters. "This cancellation has nothing to do with politics." "It's a reflection of the weakened state of late night television." "And oh, by the way, the show was losing $40 million a year."

The economics of late night television have always been a bit of a black box, so in the absence of any other data, that $40 million figure has become the accepted conventional wisdom in most of the reporting surrounding the cancellation. So much so that when The Financial Times wrote about David Ellison and the turmoil at CBS today, their piece quoted the $40 million figure, attributing it to "media reports."

But how accurate is that number? 

It's a bit difficult to know for sure. But after talking to several people familiar with the economics of the show (both current and former employees), here is an overall look. The Late Show's annual budget appears to be in the $90-$100 million range. And while the outside estimates of the show's ad revenue are all over the map, most estimates show the revenue dropping by about half over the past six years. Which likely means a substantial annual deficit over the past couple of years.

But is the reported $40 million a year deficit an accurate reflection of the revenue problem? Sources I've spoken with insist the number is wildly inflated, with two sources who have direct knowledge of the show's economics telling me the number for the upcoming season is likely to be closer to the range of $25-$28 million. Which is a lot of money, but it is also not $40 million a year.

One source suggested that the $40 million figure included a lot of extraneous expenses, including likely pay increases for staff and for Colbert if the show continued past next year. The source also suspected the figure included some shifting of expenses in a way designed to maximize the short-term loss, although "No one really knows for sure," I was told. "I don't know anyone I've talked to who can figure out where that $40 million number came from. So it's impossible to know how accurate it is. If you ask me, it's bull****."

One of things I've heard from more than one person is that the idea of cancelling a show because it's losing $40 million a year and then leaving it on the air until May doesn't make a lot of sense. "I've read some stories that CBS executives are leaving the show on the air in order to give us a 'proper send-off.' I'm sorry, but I've worked for this company long enough to know that some executives might be sentimental about shows. But they're not tens of millions in more losses sentimental."

Another pushback I've heard from insiders was the idea that The Late Show was less digitally savvy than competing late night talkers, leading to less digital ad revenue. The sources agree that was true, but laid much of the blame on the network and to a lesser extent on Colbert himself. "I know for a fact that we tried to get the green light for more digital content and we were told the network 'didn't think that played to our strength.' I also don't think it was a high priority for Stephen, although I don't have any direct knowledge of the conversations he might have had with CBS."

Regardless, what is clear is that at best the reported $40 million a year loss is the absolute worst case scenario. And the truth is that the loss this year will be substantial, but likely at least $10 million less than network sources are telling reporters.

I've reached out to the network and Paramount Global as well as to Stephen Colbert and have not received a response. 

https://toomuchtv.substack.com/p/too-much-tv-exclusive-reports-of

 

[oblong]

We will know it when Colbert goes to another entity.

[ewsieg]

This Colbert thing makes about as much sense as the WNBA players demanding NBA salaries.  40 million dollar loss is bull****?  Because sources state that if they continued it past it's current contract, it may have lost around 40 million dollars a year, but it only lost probably 25-28 million this year, so the excuse that it was losing money is not fair?!?!?!

If it was about Colbert and Colbert only 1) they send him packing immediately and pay out the rest of his contract and 2) they announce a new (cheaper) person to replace him.  They immediately came out and said there would be no show going forward.  

[gehringer_2]

2 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

This Colbert thing makes about as much sense as the WNBA players demanding NBA salaries. 

Decision made by a committee, probably with a lot of lawyers in the room. A piece of this guy's priorities, a piece of that guy's agenda, a bit of CYA for the other guy. When it's all said and done they pat themselves on the back for their optimized solution while  it's actually a Camel that plods out the door.

[oblong]

You can’t trust entertainment accounting. They can make it come out any way they want for their narrative. 

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

You can’t trust entertainment accounting. They can make it come out any way they want for their narrative. 

Certainly cannot understand why we are supposed to just accept Paramount's framing given the obvious conflict of interest at hand 

[chasfh]

15 hours ago, ewsieg said:

This Colbert thing makes about as much sense as the WNBA players demanding NBA salaries.  40 million dollar loss is bull****?  Because sources state that if they continued it past it's current contract, it may have lost around 40 million dollars a year, but it only lost probably 25-28 million this year, so the excuse that it was losing money is not fair?!?!?!

If it was about Colbert and Colbert only 1) they send him packing immediately and pay out the rest of his contract and 2) they announce a new (cheaper) person to replace him.  They immediately came out and said there would be no show going forward.  

If it was really only about losing money, wouldn’t they have axed him immediately, instead of continuing to lose money for another nine months?

[ewsieg]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

If it was really only about losing money, wouldn’t they have axed him immediately, instead of continuing to lose money for another nine months?

Colbert was contracted out for 9 months, guessing most of the senior folks on the staff are on contract too, so cutting it immediately may not have really saved them a ton of money.  But again, if the late show is still valuable to them and they simply wanted to please Trump to get rid of Colbert, you get rid of Colbert immediately and you find a replacement for the supposed lucrative late night slot.

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, ewsieg said:

Colbert was contracted out for 9 months, guessing most of the senior folks on the staff are on contract too, so cutting it immediately may not have really saved them a ton of money.  But again, if the late show is still valuable to them and they simply wanted to please Trump to get rid of Colbert, you get rid of Colbert immediately and you find a replacement for the supposed lucrative late night slot.

They could buy it Colbert for way way less than $30 million and just ****can everyone else and save a couple Ms. If it’s about the money.

[CMRivdogs]

14 minutes ago, chasfh said:

They could buy it Colbert for way way less than $30 million and just ****can everyone else and save a couple Ms. If it’s about the money.

Yep. The way they're doing it now allows Colbert to bash Trump a bit longer with no real recriminations. Business sense #1 if you're going to can someone do it right away. 

[ewsieg]

On 8/1/2025 at 9:34 PM, CMRivdogs said:

Yep. The way they're doing it now allows Colbert to bash Trump a bit longer with no real recriminations. Business sense #1 if you're going to can someone do it right away. 

Exactly, remember back to the Drew and Mike days (for the Detroit area folks)?  It was a big deal that they got to come back for a week after it was announced the show was over and in hind sight, half of the folks already agreed to jump over to the new sports radio station the company was launching.  At the time though, that wasn't known and it was kind of shocking they were allowed to come on the air and say goodbyes.  

If CBS really was trying to shut Colbert up, they could have done it a lot easier, and like you say chasfh, they could have probably saved some money too.  

I get Trump sucks, but not every bad (or good) decision being made by a corporation is because of him.

[gehringer_2]

Quote

I get Trump sucks, but not every bad (or good) decision being made by a corporation is because of him.

OTOH, when you have a petty, vindictive meddling President and a merger before the FTC, you've got a pretty good basis to presume he had something to do with this one.

[Edman85]

A good dive into Alt National Park's blatant plagiarism.

 

https://jjoycelynch.substack.com/p/the-alt-national-park-service-on?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

[romad1]

Relates to many, many things

 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

Relates to many, many things

 

We really have serious issues with corporate and tax law in the US. We've made it profitable to make money by gutting otherwise stable businesses. But it's one of  those esoteric topics that democracy is really bad at because no-one understands how it works. You just have to have decent leadership to fix it and with Citizen's United making sure it's the profiteers that buy the politicians, that's impossible. I believe there are certain 'trapdoor' function errors a society can make that become fundamentally irreversible; that there is no way back from. Even though the consciousness of it seems to have faded from public awareness completely, CU and our corrupt political funding system is still at the fulcrum of what keeps US politics from ever-re-establishing anything like a public interest equilibrium. 

Edited August 6 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

33 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

We really have serious issues with corporate and tax law in the US. We've made it profitable to make money by gutting otherwise stable businesses. But it's one of  those esoteric topics that democracy is really bad at because no-one understands how it works. You just have to have decent leadership to fix it and with Citizen's United making sure it's the profiteers that buy the politicians, that's impossible. I believe there are certain 'trapdoor' function errors a society can make that become fundamentally irreversible; that there is no way back from. Even though the consciousness of it seems to have faded from public awareness completely, CU and our corrupt political funding system is still at the fulcrum of what keeps US politics from ever-re-establishing anything like a public interest equilibrium. 

I also think society in general shares some guilt.  We want to squeeze every last point out of our investments.... well this is how they do it.  We don't want 8%, we want 8.5%.  It's all about the next quarter, not quarter century.

 

[Edman85]

40 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

We really have serious issues with corporate and tax law in the US. We've made it profitable to make money by gutting otherwise stable businesses. But it's one of  those esoteric topics that democracy is really bad at because no-one understands how it works. You just have to have decent leadership to fix it and with Citizen's United making sure it's the profiteers that buy the politicians, that's impossible. I believe there are certain 'trapdoor' function errors a society can make that become fundamentally irreversible; that there is no way back from. Even though the consciousness of it seems to have faded from public awareness completely, CU and our corrupt political funding system is still at the fulcrum of what keeps US politics from ever-re-establishing anything like a public interest equilibrium. 

Gonna go on a limb and suggest this doesn't change the next 3.5 years or so, or the decades it takes cleaning up this mess.

[Edman85]

[pfife]

Starting to look like the nytimes knew of mutliple instances of Adams bribing reporters and didnt publish.

Rushed to publish hacked info from a nazi about mamdanis college application though.

More like toilet paper of record.   **** them and their word games.

[CMRivdogs]

Is FAUX starting to turn? 

Quote

CHRIS SWECKER (FORMER ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR): I will say, I have consulted with several of my colleagues, we were the leadership team just before Comey, and we're looking at this a little bit skeptically because we were very heavily critical of the Mar-a-Lago raid. Just because you have the authority and discretion to do something like this, doesn't mean you should. So we're waiting. We just don't want to see the FBI weaponized for the other side, if you will, just turning the playbook over. So, we're anxiously awaiting the unsealing of that affidavit because I believe it will be a speaking affidavit which will really lay out pretty much of the case, at least supporting the search warrant and probably a little more.

Quote

JONATHAN TURLEY (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, I think that's a very good point. There is a great concern about whether this is retaliation against a political opponent. We just don't know because we haven't seen the warrant, we haven't seen the affidavit. We do know that there has been a longstanding disagreement, as David Spunt noted, going back to Bolton's book, and it does not appear that that disagreement was ever truly resolved, at least from media accounts. But that was years ago. 

The question is why now? And what has happened? And we'll know that better, I think, sooner than later. Keep in mind Bolton himself can reveal what was taken and what was explained to him in the documents he was given. So, some of this information may come from his side.