“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert took a shot at his corporate bosses as he was honored at the Writers Guild of America Awards in New York on Sunday.
Colbert was given the Walter Bernstein Award, which the WGA said is for a member who has “demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity.”
But at the ceremony, Colbert said he doesn’t “deserve” any parallels to the award’s namesake, who was blacklisted during McCarthyism in the 1950s for being a member of the Communist Party.
“This is not the 1950s. This is not the Red Scare. And, as far as I can tell, no one in late night is fomenting a revolution,” Colbert said. “As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised but then Paramount bought it.”
That was a reference to CBS announcing last summer that his show would be canceled ― something President Donald Trump had long demanded and that came just as corporate parent Paramount sought approval from the federal government’s Federal Communications Commission to complete a merger.
The merger was approved just one week later. Colbert’s final show is set for May 21.
Critics believe Paramount cut Colbert’s show to help seal the deal, but the company said it was “purely a financial decision” as the show was losing $40 million a year ― a number many, including late night rival Jimmy Kimmel, have said they find hard to believe.
Colbert also made a reference to that in his Sunday speech.
“Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year. It had to go,” he said, then joked about his own potential future. “I hear the revolution is thinking about starting a Substack.”
Check out the full segment ― which included some jokes that didn’t make it onto “The Late Show” ― below:
