Having peddled numerous post-mortems on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show, the Media Research Center also made sure to praise its replacement. Curtis Houck wrote in a May 20 post:
The liberal crew on CBS Mornings faced the awkward task Wednesday of promoting billionaire media mogul and comedian Byron Allen paying CBS to air archival and supposedly new material from his show Comics Unleashed — which marks 20 years in 2026 — starting Friday in place of the cancelled Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Notably, Allen emphasized the show will not feature politics but instead “appeal to all” and “bring people together using comedy.”
“[T]he show is comedians discussing funny things that happen. And are you going to talk politics, or is it all about comedy,” wondered Saturday co-host Adriana Diaz.
Allen had an emphatic reply: “No, no, no, no politics. That’s it. You come, you laugh. You know…we’re about to have our 20th anniversary this fall…of Comics Unleashed, 20 years of laughter. We’ve had on a thousand comedians, every — every state, shape, size, you name it.”
When Diaz said that means “you want to bring people together,” Allen added: “And I want to bring people together using comedy. I’m going to appeal to all.”
Houck continued the right-wing spin on Colbert’s show purportedly losing money:
Allen insisted he thought “it was a very unfortunate event” because “I love Stephen Colbert” and “I’m a big fan,” but also knew “this isn’t show business,” but “business show” given CBS has been “losing lots of money.”
“I said, here’s a solution not to lose lots of money. And I think we can hold on to his audience and hopefully build on it because it is business show not show business. I absolutely love Colbert, and I would do anything — he doesn’t need me. I would do anything to support him,” he added.
As we’ve documented, CBS’ claims about how much money Colbert’s show was purportedly losing is unverified. And far from holding on to Colbert’s audience, Allen’s comedy block has lost a good chunk of it, dropping CBS from first place in late night to third (though the gap is closed somewhat on Fridays).
The fact that Houck is praising Allen’s show for avoiding political humor shows just how sensitive the MRC is to its fellow right-wingers getting mocked.
Alex Christy furthered CBS’ narrative in a May 29 post:
CBS’s stated reason for canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was that the show was losing them $40 million a year. Critics predisposed to think the world revolves around Donald Trump were hostile and outright dismissive of that, but on Thursday CBS came out with more specifics that argued that their new arrangement with Bryon Allen has netted them $55 million.
CBS was also under pressure because critics were pointing out that Allen’s Comics Unleashed brought in an underwhelming 878,000 total viewers on the night after Colbert’s finale. The Late Show had averaged 2.14 million prior to the finale of 6.74 million, according to Deadline.
Defending themselves in a statement, CBS said, “We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue. With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit — a $55 million swing.”
In other words, Allen is paying CBS, not the other way around. Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva summarizes, “Allen is paying $15 million a year as a ‘time buy,’ meaning that he is leasing the 11:30 PM hour from CBS and selling its ad inventory himself in search of profit. That is a flat fee for the network not contingent on the show’s performance (which would impact Allen’s ad rates).”
[…]While it is technically possible that CBS is overstating the $55 million swing because the 11:35 time slot Colbert occupied does not exist in isolation, even critics of CBS and their math have had to concede, “There is a real argument that the traditional model no longer works.”
Before CBS announced it was canceling The Late Show, that was widely understood, but the desire to make everything about Trump has contributed to the demise of both late night and common sense.
Christy made no effort to double-check CBS’ numbers,, which have been questioned.