← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd Podcast - CBS Cancels The Late Show w/ Stephen Colbert, Why Late Night Is DYING
00:13:42
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- [00:00]
Host 1
This is an Iheart podcast.
- [00:05]
Colin Cowherd
Okay? Have you heard about this? Last year, Degree changed the formula for their Cool Rush deodorant and their fans rebelled and wanted the old scent back. And Degree listens. That doesn't happen often. They admitted they effed up and they're bringing back the original Cool Rush scent. They're bringing it back and it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp and fresh. There's a reason it's the number one men's antiperspirant and it's back in Walmart, Target and other stores now for under four bucks. So try and see what the fuss is about. Head to your local Walmart or Target to try the OG Degree Cool Rush for yourself.
- [00:37]
Host 1
This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day, so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless Store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [01:28]
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- [03:03]
Volume Ad Voice
The Volume.
- [03:13]
Colin Cowherd
All right, it's a Saturday. I've been doing errands, watching Rory McElroy at the British Open make a run. You know, I wanted to talk at length and I do this from time to time at the Volume and on my pod about the Stephen Colbert situation. And the reason I want to talk about it is because it's being positioned differently depending on people's politics. So I grew up a Johnny Carson fan. My mom got me a gift of the Carson tapes after he retired. I've watched. I wanted to be Johnny Carson, but I moved into sports. So when I was a kid, my favorite show and I felt like I was the only person in high school and really that my favorite show was like Johnny Carson and then David Letterman. And I love both of them and they were very different personalities. Carson was doing a show for the country, didn't do political stuff. It was always about the audience. It could be the potato chip lady, it could be Don Rickles. He could work with anybody. He was a guy from Nebraska, small town. I've read every Johnny Carson book, even the one his former lawyer wrote, which lawyers should not write about their clients. I just love Johnny Carson. My dad loved him. And then I moved into Letterman, and Letterman was doing a show almost as an inside joke. You always felt like if you could get the inside joke, you were a little smarter than everybody else. And those were the two I grew up with. And I think there's a lot of talented people. I know Jimmy Kimmel a little bit, Conan o' Brien, I think is very funny. My wife really likes his podcast now. Craig Ferguson makes me laugh. He's raw. You know, all these guys that have done it. Jon Stewart's brilliant guy, and most of them, by the way, all lean left. I mean, Leno, I think, is more moderate to write. I've talked to Jay once at the Comedy Store in Hermosa. I would guess he's more moderate to write, but I don't really care. It's all about the joke. And most comedians are Making fun of people in power. So it's kind of. That's funnier than siding with the rich, powerful. It's more fun to make fun of the powerful. So in my life, I've always felt comedians kind of lean left to pick on people of power and poke them in the ribs. And that's fine. I don't really care if the joke's funny. It's all about the joke. But there was a moment with Stephen Colbert. So most of the great ones were all stand up comedians. Jon Stewart did stand up. Bill Maher's show, which is political by nature, did stand up. Letterman did stand up. Leno did stand up. Conan was a writer and when he first got on the air he was funny. But I didn't think he was a great television presence. I never thought Leno had a great TV presence. I thought Letterman, who was a local weatherman at one point, just understood the, you know, like the vagaries, the ins and outs and the angles of television very well. So did Johnny Carson. Carson's the best, in my opinion, that's ever done it. But I'm old school on that. And then there's Stephen Colbert, who really got his. He played a character on Jon Stewart show as kind of a far right buffoony chest out full of information and opinions, or full of opinions, not much information. And I love that character. I love the character was funny. And then they gave him a show and it was really bumpy at first and then politics became front and center and he was kind of politically savvy and the show did well. But I've always admired comedy more than acting. Comedians write their own stuff. You get one take. Doing live television is really effing hard. And it's just, they're really gifted actors. Use somebody else's. They get 30 takes, they have perfect angles and lighting. You can screw up very easily doing late night TV and doing stand up comedy. But what I always respected about comedians is that even if somebody heckled Jerry Seinfeld or Colin Quinn, who's another guy, I just thinks just really, really uniquely generationally talented. I love Colin Quinn. Years ago I was with a friend from Portland, Bryan. We poked our head into Caroline's and Colin Quinn, lucky enough was, was doing an act. And I remember just sitting there walking out saying like, I hope America gets how smart that guy is and how funny Colin Quinn is. He's so good. And now he's done some Broadway stuff and he and Seinfeld and Chris Rock have always been close. But most of the great Ones I just. I admire how talented they are. And the thing to note about comedians is when. Even when people are heckling them or things go sideways, Carson was a master at this. They're always true to the joke. If you heckle a comedian, he's just trying to make it funny. When Carson would misread something or the joke would bomb, it was often funnier than the jokes that hit. It's all about the joke. Don't step on the joke. It's all about the audience and hitting the joke. It doesn't matter if you're Dave Chappelle, another guy who's brilliant, Ricky Gervais, who may be smarter than all of them. And so I was willing to give Stephen Colbert a chance, and I think he's a really bright guy. But there was a moment that. The defining moment for Stephen Colbert, who, by the way, is going to be let go in May by cbs, and CBS isn't replacing it. They're getting rid of the business. And that we could talk all day long about how YouTube and young viewers don't watch TV, and young people are the ones that stay up late at night to watch those shows. And it was inevitable. And they were all going to die eventually. But Colbert had a moment. It was during COVID when his buddy, also, I think it's fair to say, a left leaner Jon Stewart came on the show. And Stewart worked hard for this bit. You could tell from the writing how he delivered it. I mean, John had worked on this bit. You can look it up. And his buddy stepped on the bit, Stephen Colbert, because he was such a partisan hack that he didn't care about the audience, he didn't care about his friend, and he didn't care about the bit. He cared about his opinion on Covid, which, by the way, I lived in California. As Bill Maher has noted many times, Florida may have gotten it more right than California. We were guessing for three months, but we weren't guessing after three months. We knew kids weren't dying. There's a real argument that Florida did a better job with it than California. Don't want to get into that. But one of the reasons Maher has endured is that Bill is willing to go after his own side. He's not tribal or parochial to the point, or too insular, where he can't look and say, you know, liberals are wrong here. And that's why I've. I've been on Marshall once. I have. So I just think he's as good as anybody who's ever done it. In that political space, I think he's the best that's ever done it. I think Jon Stewart's second. And so Stewart comes on a left leaner to Colbert, his buddy. Remember Stewart's the one that helped put Colbert in the forefront. And Stuart, you know, clearly worked on this bit and Colbert kept stepping on it over and over again. And Carson wouldn't do that and Letterman wouldn't do that. I mean, when Jon Stewart is doing stuff and somebody comes on and says something that may not, he may not agree with. I've seen John do this so many times, he will uncomfortably laugh and say, don't make me go there, don't make me laugh at this. This is wrong, you're wrong. But he doesn't get in the way of the joke. Because the fucking joke is sacred for comedians. They write their own, they perform one time, it's hard as hell. Respect the performer, respect the joke, respect how hard writing is. There's no 34 takes. It's live. It is live. And Stuart came on to deliver this and it was just a funny. I mean, it's about the Wuhan Lab. And Colbert stepped on it. He just couldn't get over himself. And it elicited such a visceral reaction to me. I've never seen him the same way. It's just like, okay, I don't care what the ratings are, it doesn't matter. For me, there was a certain Rubicon or something that was passed. I just couldn't get past. I just couldn't get past it. And maybe it didn't. Maybe if you're left leaning, you loved that moment because you thought the conservatives were crazy to speculate that maybe it was a man made virus, which I think is a very reasonable thing to discuss that's worthy of discussion. I mean, that's the whole point of this. Getting through stuff, getting over stuff, working our way through turbulence and social discomfort is the discussion. So to me, I don't have a lot of pity for Stephen Colbert. He'll get a job, he'll be fine. But he didn't honor his friend, he didn't honor the joke. He was more about himself. He wasn't about the audience, he wasn't about making us laugh. Go watch a great comedian. By the way, the other moment that I remember with Colbert show is the Ricky Gervais religion discussion where again, Gervais is just a really smart guy. And again, Colbert can't get out of his own way. He just doesn't. He's just so uncomfortable that it's making. It's moving in a direction that he doesn't agree with. It's about the joke and the story. It's about the audience and making them laugh and entertain. And I don't know why I'm so worked up over this, but the Hollywood Reporter talked about it today. These shows for the last seven years, they've lost half of their ad revenue. Why? Two reasons. One, young viewers don't stay up and watch TV anymore. The only thing anybody watches on TV is sports. I mean, that's pretty much it. Sports and news. And in every four years, the political cable shows explode. The second reason they're dying is because the late night shows talk about politics. And that's a no fly zone for a lot of advertisers. Listen, even Fox News, which is a juggernaut, a behemoth on cable television, there are advertisers that are not interested in and don't want to be on the shows, like big name advertisers because they just don't want to get in the crosshairs of polarizing, controversial discussions. And that's okay. Msnbc, Fox News, cnn, there are advertisers that don't want any part of that. And I respect the advertisers. It's one of the reasons I don't talk a lot of politics on my show. If I want to talk them, I can talk them on the volume. That's my company. So the Colbert show was losing $40 million a year and it's been hemorrhaging money for years and years and it's got a huge staff. And so, yeah, like, I mean, that's viable business. And but that moment bothered me so much that I had to literally on a Saturday come talk about it. Because somebody who grew up with Carson and love Letterman and I've got so much respect for comedians. I mean, I brought Norm MacDonald on my show, Bill Maher, my show, David Spade on my show, probably a couple others. I just to me, the ability to write your own stuff, perform. And I mean, you're just putting yourself out there. The idea that you're going to go on a show and you've been working on Norm MacDonald would tell these four minute jokes. Do you know how much courage it would take to go out with a joke that's never been told? And Conan o' Brien never got in the way of the joke. Conan o' Brien would sit there patiently waiting to reward Norm as Norm would reward him. And I think that's amazing that the CO like Conan O' Brien more than once, is uncomfortable with Norm MacDonald because his jokes would go on forever. The moth joke, and forever and ever. And you're waiting for the punchline. And Norm's a little different. Rest in peace. But that bothered me. That always drove me nuts about Colbert. It's just so partisan so much about his belief that he stepped on Stuart. And I think they're great friends. It just drove me nuts. And I've just wasted everybody's 20 minutes. But it's a Saturday. That's how I felt. And this is more kind of an ode to how gifted and great our comedians are. Ricky Gervais. I mean, I remember watching Dennis Miller tapes Letterman. God, you know, you just watched him for years. And I, you know, people over the course of my life, like, who is your inspiration? And I love Costas and Al Michaels. And I mean, it was just Joe Davis, Joe Buck. I mean, there's so many gifted guys out there doing play by play. Kevin Burkhart, his life story is amazing. But there's something about comedians to just write your own stuff, perform it. You get one time knowing it can completely bomb. There's just. I've got a soft spot for how smart they are, how clever. Empty canvas. They do their own work, they do their own painting and are willing to walk on stage and just bomb. Actors don't have to go through that, right? They get 40 takes, somebody else writes it. Happy Saturday. The volume, okay. Have you heard about this? Last year, Degree changed the formula for their Cool Rush deodorant, and their fans rebelled and wanted the old scent back. And Degree listens. That doesn't happen often. They admitted they effed up, and they're bringing back the original Cool Rush scent. They're bringing it back, and it's exactly how you remember it. Cool, crisp, and fresh. There's a reason it's the number one men's any purse grip. And it's back in Walmart, Target, and other stores now for under four bucks. So try and see what the fuss is about. Head to your local Walmart or Target to try the OG Degree Cool Rush for yourself.
- [17:16]
Host 1
This podcast is sponsored by Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of ufc. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights, you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. With Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network, so you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless provider, but Total Wireless really does have your back. They're in your corner every second of the day so you never miss a thing. Visit totalwireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless Store to learn more about how total Wireless can be in your corner. 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Additional terms apply. See website for details.
- [18:07]
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- [18:37]
Colin Cowherd
Ugh. Come on.
- [18:38]
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- [18:41]
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- [18:56]
Colin Cowherd
Whoa.
- [18:56]
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- [18:57]
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- [19:15]
Host 1
This is an I Heart podcast.