WGA calls for bribery probe after Colbert show axed, Trump celebrates cancellation
Stephen Colbert called Paramount’s settlement with Trump a “big fat bribe”
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has called for an investigation into the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
The WGA on Friday said it had concerns the show was axed by broadcaster CBS to “curry favour” with US president Donald Trump as its parent company, Paramount Global, seeks regulatory approval for its takeover by Skydance.
The WGA pointed to the fact Colbert, a vocal Trump critic, had recently called Paramount’s US$16m settlement with the president a “big fat bribe.”
That, it suggested, was evidence that The Late Show’s cancellation was intended to further grease the wheels of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s review of the US$8bn Paramount-Skydance deal. The FCC, which has been reviewing the deal for months, is led by chair Brendan Carr, a Republican lawyer who was appointed to the role by Trump.
“Given Paramount’s recent capitulation to President Trump in the CBS News lawsuit, the Writers Guild of America has significant concerns that The Late Show’s cancellation is a bribe, sacrificing free speech to curry favour with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval,” said the guild.
The California State Senate previously opened up an investigation into whether Paramount had broken rules around bribery and competition.
“The Writers Guild of America calls on New York State Attorney General Letitia James, no stranger to prosecuting Trump for illegal business practices, to join California and launch an investigation into potential wrongdoing at Paramount,” said the WGA.
For its part, CBS claimed the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late-night” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
There is no doubt that the economics of American late-night television have become increasingly challenged in recent years. The Late Show, which has been fronted by Colbert since 2015, costs US$100m per season and loses as much as US$40m annually, according to a report from Puck News.
However, while it is possible to make a strong case that Paramount is cancelling the show for financial reasons, many find the decision to be suspicious, especially given Paramount’s urgency to get the Skydance deal over the line.
Skydance CEO David Ellison also met with the FCC’s Carr last week, pledging Skydance’s commitment to “unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBS’s editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers,” according to a filing.
While many legal experts said Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News – in which he alleged the news outlet had deceptively edited a 60 Minutes interview with former presidential nominee Kamala Harris to make her look better in the lead-up to the election – was meritless, Paramount’s decision to settle the case was greeted with anger and disgust by CBS News insiders, with several senior execs quitting as a result.
Disney’s ABC News also settled a Trump lawsuit of its own, also thought to be winnable, while Amazon struck a deal reportedly worth US$40m for the rights to a documentary involved First Lady Melania Trump.
Many inside and outside the TV business have characterised these settlements and deals as bribes or, at the very least, ways to make their lives easier during Trump’s second term.
“Cancellations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society,” said the WGA. “Paramount’s decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organisations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR.”
Trump celebrated the news that Colbert’s show will go off-air as of May 2026, writing on his social platform Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
He also took a swipe at Jimmy Fallon, who fronts NBC’s The Tonight Show. “Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” wrote Trump.
The Colbert cancellation also came on the same week the US House of Representatives voted to claw back around US$9bn in previously allocated funding for foreign aid and public media, including rescinding around US$1.1bn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds public broadcaster PBS and radio broadcaster NPR.
The funding cuts have been championed by Trump, who has accused PBS of being a liberal mouthpiece and a waste of federal funds. The cuts, which are part of a larger “rescission bill,” have now been approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives and are now headed to the White House to be rubber stamped.
PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said last week that the cuts will be “especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas. Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead.”
