CBS says $40 million Late Night loss to turn into $15 million profit after kicking Stephen Colbert

CBS says its decision to end The Late Show and replace it with Comics Unleashed is expected to improve the network's finances by tens of millions of dollars.

After losing roughly $40 million per year to produce The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, CBS is set to profit at least $15 million from its replacement. This comes despite a drop-off in viewership, as Colbert’s show averaged about 2.1 million viewers and Comics Unleashed debuted to roughly 878,000 viewers.

Despite the ratings gap, CBS says the economic arrangement could be financially beneficial. Under the new agreement, host Byron Allen purchased the timeslot from CBS and will assume responsibility for all production costs associated with Comics Unleashed. This is a major shift from The Late Show, where CBS covered 100 percent of production expenses even as advertising revenue across its entertainment programming had continued to weaken.

Allen will also retain advertising revenue generated for the program after paying CBS a reported $15 million licensing fee for the timeslot.

CBS released a statement in which it emphasized that ending Colbert’s program was a financial decision and defended prior reporting that the show had been losing approximately $40 million per year. Fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel had previously objected to claims of the massive revenue loss, saying it was “beyond nonsensical.”

“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that… was cost-prohibitive to continue,” CBS said in a statement. “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.”