2mo ago

Jimmy Kimmel Blasts Reports of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Losing $40 Million for CBS: ‘Not a Snowball’s Chance in Hell That’s Accurate’

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If Colbert loses CBS $40M per year, it must have lost CBS $40M last year too. Yet CBS didn't fire him last year.
CBS must have terrible accountants, because clearly Colbert's cancellation has nothing to do whatsoever with a certain overweight orange baboon in DC...
There's a famous phrase called "Hollywood Accounting". It's a creative approach to accounting, in order to make a profitable business venture (i.e. movies) look like a loss. Traditionally, this has been used to reduce taxes and dodge contractual obligations, as some were paid a percentage of profits.
Generally, it means shuffling the money around. CBS lost $40m, to make another business unit (in a tax-advantaged location) a ton of money.
I don't understand, the only way it could lose 40 million is if it cost that to make, no? Colbert's salary is 15 million according to the first number I saw after a search. I don't see 25 million's worth in that show. So how can it "lose" that?
Or is it a case of "we projected 100 million in advertising but only got 60, still making a profit, but 40 less than we said"?
- "We could have had the next Game of Thrones doing 200 episodes a year at 11:30pm every weeknight and made approximately a million billion gajillion dollars - anything less is a loss."
  CBS's tax accounting team, probably.
- https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-colbert-got-canceled
  Still, The Late Show has long carried a headcount of more than 200 employees. Many of them are likely quite long-tenured, protected by unions or by office politics. My experience with ABC News suggests that most of them are dedicated and highly skilled professionals, but some are also coasting, and the pay scale might not have much to do with their contribution to the bottom line. It’s not hard to imagine that they’re making an average of something like $250K per year per person, counting benefit packages, which are often generous at the big media brands.
  Take 200 x $250K … that’s $50 million. On top of that, Colbert was reportedly making between $15 and $20 million a year. If Paramount was then allocating some costs to the Late Show for a dedicated studio on a prime block in Midtown, equipment for a show with a pristine production values, plus travel and accommodation for guests — considerably nicer, in my experience, than for your typical late-afternoon TV hit — you could easily approach the nine figures.
  
  Wow, I had no idea that kind of head count was necessary to produce something like that.
I mean, you have to include the payoff to Trump, the lawyer's fees, losses from the merger corruptly delayed by Trump throwing a hissy fit, etc. I imagine all that kind of stuff fills in much of the gap between whatever the show actually loses if anything and $40M.
- the merger with SKYDANCE owner, who is a TRUMPER too.
- Companies have lawyers on staff, legal costs for trump case would have been basically fixed. It doesnt usually work like it does for main st.
are they still holding on to nutrek, to offset the loss. they need to let a proper showrunner for nutrek.

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