Things are getting a little heated over at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The host only has about three more months of his talk show to go before the plug is officially pulled, and while Colbert may be going, he’s not going quietly, and it looks like he has little issue upsetting the CBS execs who fired him on the way out the door as Colbert is now engaged in a war of words with his own network.
How CBS Responded To Stephen Colbert’s Comments
Everything started on the evening of February 16 when Colbert announced that he had been ordered by CBS’s legal team not to air his interview with Texas Rep. James Talirico, who is running for Senate in the state. Despite being advised not to talk about it on-air, Colbert did just that, taking aim at his network, and parent company Paramount, a favorite target in recent months, for the move and the FCC for considering alterations to its equal time rule that led to the network’s decision.
However, in a surprising move, CBS released a statement following Colbert’s show claiming that isn’t quite what happened. The statement read:
The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico. The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.
The issue at hand is that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the same man who suggested ABC affiliates pre-empt Jimmy Kimmel before they did exactly that, and Kimmel was suspended, has suggested removing the exemption from the equal time rule that talk shows have had. Colbert claimed CBS was acting as if the exemption had already been lifted. CBS’s statement seems to imply the network was simply preparing for the possibility that the rule could be enforced.
Colbert did an end run around the issue by airing the interview only on YouTube, where the FCC has no jurisdiction.
How Stephen Colbert Reacted To His Network’s Statement
Needless to say, it’s a little unusual to see a network and the host of the network’s show go back and forth like this. One wouldn’t expect Colbert to leave things there, and he did not. On Colbert's February 17th show, he criticized the statement from CBS, which was apparently released without The Late Show even being made aware that it was happening. Colbert said he didn’t understand why it needed to be released, as everything he’d said had already been vetted by lawyers. Colbert included:
Between the monologue I did last night and before I did the second act, talking about this issue, I had to go backstage. I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers, something that had never, ever happened before. And they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception, and I used that language, so I don’t know what this is about. For the record, I’m not even mad. I really don’t want an adversarial relationship with the network; I’ve never had one.
Colbert then ended the segment by crumpling up a copy of the CBS statement and picking it up with a bag, the way one handles dog droppings. It will be interesting to see if CBS has any new statement following Colbert’s salvo. This particular issue is likely done, but Colbert is clearly playing The Late Show like a senior who is done with finals. He's out in May, and the worst anybody at the network can do to him is fire him.
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