I've always felt a comfort in
numbers and statistics. Perhaps that is because so much of my writing involves
fields where they can be use to buttress theories far more than so much
speculation on both sides tends to do. For all that's changed in the world we
live in I cling to these three simple words: "Figures don't lie."
In the last decade Hollywood has
been engaged in War on Trump almost non-stop since election day 2016. I've
spent a lot of time arguing that this conflict has done far more harm to
Hollywood then it has to Trump but most of this has been in the realm of speculation.
I've seen numbers of the industries, I see so many of the mergers and dropping
ratings across the board and they would seem to be making a convincing argument
– but the critical word is 'seems'. I don't have any raw data to back it up.
Then in the aftermath of Stephen
Colbert's final show I actually got some. On its own it's not quite enough to
convince me that my theories are correct and I have little hope that they will
do much to convince those who are divided among partisan lines. But here's the
thing: those very numbers actually give me reason to believe that maybe, just
maybe, there is room that those divisions may not be as great as we think.
That will be the subject of a later article;
for now let's just focus on what those numbers tell me about four separate
points: Stephen Colbert, ratings in late night now as opposed to in the past,
ratings of late night in two very distinct period and the electoral appeal of
the President as of this week. Because these number would seem to illustrate
several pictures about Hollywood's war on Trump that puncture in the biggest
way possible so much of their argument about their vehement and increasingly
unpleasant attitude towards all things associated with him and the right in the
last decade.
First of all let's look at the
ratings for Colbert's last appearance on Late Night on Thursday, which have
been verified by multiple sources. Now let's look at several points. First the
date has been set in stone for over a year and there has been immense attention
paid to it in the media. Second the other hosts in late night, Jimmy Kimmel,
Jimmy Fallon and The Daily Show all decided to go dark 'out of respect to their
colleague." Third, according to the New York Times, these were the largest
numbers, not just Colbert but any late night show had drawn in a very long
time.
The final numbers were…6.75
million.
I know that the arithmetic for
television, particularly network TV, has changed a lot in this decade alone. But
for a live event, that has had a year's publicity, with no competition and so
much media attention from circles that aren't outside entertainment that seems
disappointing to say the least.
Now compare that with David
Letterman's last show. He drew 13.7 million viewers. One year earlier Jay Leno's last show drew 11.
9 million viewers. And on Johnny Carson's final show back in May of 1992 drew 55
million viewers. That is, for the record, more than 10 million people
who voted for Clinton just six months later.
I can hear all the arguments that
the world is a very different place then it was thirty-four years ago. That's
true. What's also true is that Carson would never have done the kind of
material then any of his contemporaries in late night have spent the last
decade doing. As was pointed out quite a bit in the aftermath of the
assassination of Ronald Reagan the night before the Oscars Johnny Carson was
hosting. The first thing he did was offer the best wishes to Ronald Reagan and
say that he was hoping the President was off for a speedy recovery, made a joke
about how the President was doing and the ceremony paused for Reagan to give a
videotaped introduction. Carson would never have made a joke about Nancy Reagan
having the glow of an expectant widow under any circumstances and if he thought
he'd said something would have given offense he would absolutely have
apologized the next night. That's not something any of his predecessors would
have thought of doing.
Now let's extrapolate what these
raw numbers would seem to tell us...or at least me.
1. Jay Leno was being kind in his
estimations.
Last year when Leno was
interviewed and said that today's comedians go out of their way to isolate half
the country with their jokes, everyone in late in turn attacked Jay Leno as not
being funny. It's now looking like Leno was being generous in his figures
because according to the math Colbert did alienate half the country. He
drew less than half the audience of
Letterman's last show just eleven years earlier, never mind talking about
Carson. And that's before you consider other math.
If we argue that the three
combined audiences of the major late show were all watching on Thursday, well
then at most all of them had around 2.25 million viewers – and that's being
generous. So that means in the 2020s,
each of the three late night shows are drawing 2 million viewers a night live.
Their defenders will argue that people like Colbert and Kimmel must speak truth
to power. Well looking at these numbers,
power may be the only people watching because the rest of America sure isn't.
And based on that…
2. The final numbers of late show
actually strengthen CBS's argument that the show was becoming a
financial drain.
This part had actually been
verified long before Colbert's cancellation in multiple stories which revealed
that across the board late night shows had to economize. All the shows had cut
to four nights a week instead of five and Seth Meyers had to give up his band.
This isn't the sign of world that's flourishing.
And if you're drawing at best 2
million viewers a night, for a network show in this era that's a huge loss.
Network TV is already struggling financially across the board in part because
the largest audiences for many shows are still becoming money losers. TV
networks are not charities, they are to make money and Colbert was an employee.
There are those who will argue he was the number one person in late night, but
all that meant was that he was a big fish in a pond that was shrinking.
This brings up another argument
they don't want here.
3. Trump was right when he said
nobody watched late night.
I will grant you by the
dictionary definition the President was punching down every time he tweeted
when someone in late night chose to say something nasty about him. But sadly,
the numbers do bear him out. 2 million viewers a night is not a big deal; six
million isn't really that impressive and Colbert hadn't drawn that in years.
To be clear he did act even more
like a bully then he should have with everything he has done against the
networks ever since his second term. He would have done better to concentrate
on governing. But there's a bigger story.
4. The numbers for late night
tell us that Colbert and his colleagues vastly underestimated the sway they had
over America.
In 2016 Donald Trump received
just under 63 million votes in his first run for the Presidency. 8 years later
after throwing everything they had at him, he received 77.3 million votes 14.3
million more then he did in 2016.
You can debate about a lot of
things but it's hard to argue that late night had any real effect in changing
anyone's mind. Why would it? If at most you are reaching 2 to 3 million viewers
a night – and they're almost always the same ones, which means they agree with
the political views Colbert and his colleagues aired - how do you rationally expect to have any sway
over the political conversation?
Hell in 2024 Kirsten Gillibrand got 4.7
million votes in New York running for reelection. She was drawing more people
in her state than Colbert was in the country! That's bring me to…
5. Unlike in late night, in the
last decade Trump's hold on his base has not shrunk.
During this week Trump's approval
numbers had reached record lows, almost the lowest of any President in history.
And yet despite that he still retains the hold over his base in a way that
Hollywood never has. The Saturday before his final episode Trump Bill Cassidy
one of the Senators who voted to impeach Trump was demolished in his primary.
300,000 Louisiana Republicans voted against him. We saw he was capable in
Kentucky and we will no doubt see it in the Texas runoff on Tuesday.
This is a national following in a
way that late night has never had. I seriously doubt that Colbert has 60,000
viewers watching him in the state of Kentucky his final week, much less
in the fourth district that Thomas Massie lost his primary.
Its worth reminding people that
Colbert had only 1 republican guest on his show during the entire Biden
administration and I seriously doubt he had any during his last year. If
Colbert had been serious about speaking truth to power – hell if anyone in
Hollywood had been – they would have invited almost anyone in the last decade
who'd publicly stood against him and held them as heroes while they were
still running for office. Cassidy, Romney, John Cornyn, any of the Indiana
state legislators who tried to stop the gerrymandering effort last fall.
Hell Colbert made it clear he had
nothing to lose. And honestly nothing would have pissed off Trump more than
helping Republicans who were against him hold office?
But did he? Of course he didn't.
Nor has anyone in late night. Nor has anyone in Hollywood. Not because they're
loyal Democrats – end of the day they're too conservative for their taste - or because they care if Trump is wrecking the
country.
No they want to make it very
clear that they hate Trump and everything he stands for. If that means that
they lay waste to their own industry – and given the raw numbers for late night
that these statistics illustrate its very hard to argue that they're not doing
just that – so be it.
Colbert's behavior in the last
year bears that out. His behavior was a combination of nostalgia and scorched
earth. He clearly believes or has convinced himself that he is the aggrieved
party, the victim of the machinations of the powers that be to silence him for
speaking the truth. First of all, that's an ego that is nearly comparable to
his enemy and second of all, even if it were true that only proves how deluded
he is.
Colbert wasn't an activist, not a
politician. He was a white multi-millionaire who was employed by a corporation.
He had a fiduciary obligation to that corporation to generate revenue for it. The
numbers illustrate he was failing at that job.
Compared to most working stiff he
was given a more than generous severance package: they gave him a year's notice,
allowed him to keep his job while he found other employment and allowed him to
get fully paid. They even allowed him to engage in the bad behavior that very
well might have led to the company firing him in the first place, in public,
private and at his job. He got a much better deal that anyone else who works in
the world of late-stage capitalism then he and his colleagues have been saying
is destroying the country.
Furthermore none of this will
hurt him with future employers, if anything his bad behavior has guaranteed
that he will be successful for the rest of his life. He will be wealthy beyond
his dreams, celebrated by his peers and those who think that way, championed as
a hero even though he accomplished nothing of note – including his supposed
goal of bringing down the President. Talk about a golden parachute.
These numbers paint a picture that is
diametrically opposed to the one that Colbert and his colleagues in both late
night and the industry are convinced is what actually happened. For me these
numbers tell me something different. They tell me that Colbert's decision to
attack Trump with full furor did nothing to reduce his hold on power and shrunk
his audience to almost nothing. This caused his show to become less popular,
causing it to become a financial drain for the company, forcing CBS to let him
go to cut their losses. He and his
colleagues never had any real influence on America to make up for it and have
done nothing to reduce the President's hold on the electorate right up until
his last week on the air.
Colbert is not a victim of an
unjust system. The Late Show was the casualty of his own actions and so are
the people who were turning to it for entertainment night after night. Some of
them might have been hard working people who wanted nothing more then to have
an escape from the world around them and turned on TV at 11:30 and got reminded
just how horrible it was and that some of them were, by extension, to blame for
it. I have a feeling there might have been less of them then we think and that
will be the subject of the next article related to this.
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