This week, Jimmy Kimmel called for disgruntled Stephen Colbert fans to cancel Paramount+ subscriptions—while appearing on Paramount-owned CBS, flanked by other supportive late-night hosts. Seth Meyers jabbed Paramount chief David Ellison for ruining the network. And David Letterman came home to bid “Late Show” farewell, gleefully throwing CBS property off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater and extending network brass a bleeped sign-off, “Good night, and good luck, motherfuckers.”
Through it all, CBS, which again skipped this week’s upfront festivities, has stoically played the role of the television industry’s birthday party piñata for comics and commentators. Yet the network and studio have remained a particularly ripe target because of lingering suspicions that underlying motives—based on politics, not just economics—prompted the cancellation of Colbert’s long-running show, providing late night’s version of a murder mystery.
As Colbert prepares to formally sign off May 21, those chickens are coming home to roost. While CBS and Paramount haven’t wavered from the explanation offered last July that “Late Show” had succumbed to economic pressures—recently telling The New York Times it was “unequivocally a financial decision”—industry veterans tell Status they…
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The latest episode of Power Lines just dropped.
In this week’s episode: We discuss Bari Weiss’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week in which a series of fiascos embarrassed “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and highlighted her television news inexperience—all while we broke news about how she undermined legendary “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl.
Plus, we break down the controversy at The NYT after the newspaper’s opinion section published the Nicholas Kristof column that made shocking allegations about the rape of Palestinians. And we delve into our reporting about how Axel Springer boss Mathias Döpfner has been quietly trying to court Donald Trump.
You can watch on YouTube—or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to participate in the program, call and ask us a question via our voicemail inbox at (646) 926-0325. We’ll play your message and answer your questions in future episodes!
Kelly Reilly and Ed Harris in "Dutton Ranch." (Emerson Miller/Paramount+)
Déjà Vu at ‘Dutton Ranch’: After the success of CBS’ by-the-numbers "Marshals," it’s clear there’s still plenty of diesel left in Taylor Sheridan’s ever-expanding “Yellowstone” television universe—which bodes well, commercially at least, for "Dutton Ranch." Sheridan also hasn’t lost his touch attracting marquee actors of a certain age—in this case, Annette Bening and Ed Harris—to ride shotgun with Kelly Reilly and Cole Hauser as they migrate to Texas but conveniently stumble directly into a brand-new western soap opera.
After an unforeseen event forces them to leave Montana, Beth (Reilly) and Rip (Hauser) stake their claim in Texas, where they almost immediately run afoul of…
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