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For over 30 years, CBS’s The Late Show has been one of the best-reviewed and most awarded shows in the history of late night television. That will end next spring, and while fans are upset about its treatment, there’s a kind of bleak symmetry to the way Paramount has surrendered their dignity with the cancellation.

In 1993, David Letterman was the presumptive heir to NBC’s storied The Tonight Show. While there were a few possible replacements for outgoing host Johnny Carson, Carson himself had indicated that he hoped for Letterman.

As most everyone knows, that didn’t happen. The network liked Jay Leno — whose inoffensive comedy gelled with his company-man personality — better than Letterman. While Letterman was wildly creative and is widely regarded as one of the greatest late-night hosts of all time, he wasn’t always easy to work with, and periodically skewered his bosses and their corporate overlords.

Leno would go on to host The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2014, with only a brief break in 2010 for Conan O’Brien to try his hand at the job (a whole other controversy for another time).

Letterman, incensed by being passed over, opted to leave NBC and set up an entirely new late night franchise at CBS. The Late Show With David Letterman, which debuted in 1993 after Letterman’s period of exclusivity to NBC ended, usually trailed behind The Tonight Show in the ratings, but earned better reviews and occasionally passed Leno (or O’Brien) when something was going particularly right or wrong for one of the two competing shows.

The Late Show was built on the back of Letterman’s weird, inventive approach to late night, and became an institution at CBS. When Letterman retired, beloved Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert was brought in to replace him.

Since Leno’s departure, The Tonight Show has been hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Late night as a whole has struggled, but The Tonight Show doubly so, with recent ratings indicating that Colbert nearly doubled Fallon’s overnight ratings, with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live placing about halfway between the two.

CBS, owned by Paramount Global, announced yesterday that they would be ending the Late Show brand next May, giving Colbert one final year on the air. Paramount cited a difficult late night environment for the cancellation, claiming it was “purely a financial decision.” That pre-emptive argument was likely made in hopes of staving off criticism, but…well…it won’t work.

Paramount is seeking federal approval for a merger with Skydance, and since U.S. President Donald Trump has been wielding his executive power as a cudgel to silence critics and punish enemies, it’s widely speculated that the company was moving to appease Trump by silencing one of his most public critics. The network also recently gave Trump $16 million after he sued over coverage he didn’t like on 60 Minutes, a lawsuit that was utterly without merit on its face.

Colbert built an opening monologue around the settlement, criticizing his bosses in a way that might have felt familiar to Letterman fans.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Bluesky, “CBS canceled Colbert’s show just three days after Colbert called out CBS owner Paramount for its $16 million settlement with Trump—a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

Trump, for his part, made no attempt to hide his glee, posting on Truth Social that he was pleased that Colbert had been “fired.”

Ending a successful brand with decades of history is always depressing for its fans, and Colbert’s audience are understandably upset. That it reeks of appeasement and comes on the heels of a fairly transparent bribe to the U.S. President makes it even worse.

There is, though, a weird symmetry to it.

After all, CBS wanted credibility in the marketplace, and they essentially bought it by bringing David Letterman on board after his acrimonious exit at NBC made that network the most hated network in the country.

The Tonight Show controversy, and subsequent discoveries that Leno’s agent had been harassing and bullying network executives into making it happen, tainted Leno’s legacy and dented The Tonight Show‘s brand. CBS rode in on a white horse and introduced The Late Show, which has since been seen as a gold standard in terms of quality. It gave them the credibility they had longed for and, eventually, the top-rated late night show in the country.

That reputation was built, in part, on Letterman’s bad-boy image. This wasn’t your dad’s Tonight Show, and Letterman was no easily-pacified company man. Colbert, best known as a political satirist, continued that trajectory and earned similarly strong reviews. But, like Letterman, he upset the suits at the network (and, in Colbert’s case, in the White House).

Now, to get a financial deal done, CBS is abdicating their dignity and surrendering that hard-won credibility. They’ve transformed themselves into NBC in the ’90s, but worse…because they don’t even have an inoffensive Jay Leno-type to win the audience back with.