Why Stephen Colbert Is Taking a Pay Cut for ‘The Late Show’

Why Stephen Colbert Is Taking a Pay Cut for ‘The Late Show’, With all of the affection profiles and annual awning belief on Stephen Colbert and his new job as the host of The Late Show, you’d be forgiven for cerebration the late-night host is not alone adopting his accessible contour but his bacon as well. You’d be wrong.

While the exact data of Colbert’s arrangement haven’t been disclosed, if the appear $4.6 actor per year for a three-year accord with CBS is accurate, that would in actuality be a abatement from the 51-year-old entertainer’s appear $6 actor bacon at the end of his administration on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.

That puts Colbert on the low end of the late-night bacon spectrum: Jimmy Fallon takes home a appear $11 to $12 actor as host of NBC’s The Tonight Show; Jimmy Kimmel earns $10 actor for Jimmy Kimmel Live!; and Conan O’Brien enjoyed a $12 actor bacon endure year as host of Conan on TBS. Then there are the retired titans: afore axis over their shows, David Letterman fabricated $30 actor some years as host of The Late Show, while Jay Leno took home $20 to $25 actor a year on The Tonight Show.

And of course, annihilation comes abutting to the $25 actor Johnny Carson becoming in 1980—the agnate of almost $72 actor today if adapted for inflation.

While the move to CBS will absolutely drag the late-night anchorperson in the accessible consciousness, Colbert will aboriginal accept to prove he can accomplish the arrangement money afore afore he starts raking in bigger bucks. (Just ask O’Brien, who formed on 13-week affairs if he started as host of NBC’s Late Night.)

Colbert’s atom in the calendar is acute for CBS. With ad buyers appetent a adolescent demographic, there’s added burden on all late-night hosts to actualize TV that not alone attracts reside angle but aswell produces hits the next day on amusing media platforms, Fallon’s celebrity lip-syncing segments and John Oliver’s breakdown of cultural issues on Endure Week Tonight getting prime examples. On Comedy Central, Colbert could be counted on to bear funny, agreeable segments with a political bite that appealed to academy grads consistently auspicious their Twitter feeds; on CBS, it’s cryptic how that will play out (though Colbert will absolutely accept some fun with the 2016 election).

What is bright is that CBS is relying on Colbert to ample the ad dollar abandoned larboard by Letterman. Ad spending on advertisement arrangement late-night allocution shows was $597.5 actor in 2014, according to Kantar Media, up 14% from 2013. And as Variety noted, “late-night ad prices this year rose by a greater allotment than those for primetime TV.”

While all late-night shows accept apparent declines in viewership, CBS is astute to put its chips on Colbert. A December 2014 adventure of The Colbert Report had 3.6 actor online streams, according to Comedy Central; that’s three times his boilerplate reside TV viewership in 2014. And admitting the admirers of Letterman’s appearance averaged 58.2 years old, The Colbert Report‘s boilerplate eyewitness was 42.3 years old—“the youngest-skewing admirers of any late-night advertisement or cable show,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In fact, CBS has already apparent renewed interest, with a agent cogent AdAge that ad ante “increased significantly” for late-night shows on the arrangement at this year’s TV upfronts. If Colbert can accumulate that drive going, he’s abiding to adore a ample accession down the road.

But hey, if none of that works out, conceivably Colbert’s cut from Jeb Bush’s raffle will accompany in some added cash.
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