How Colbert and Kimmel Could Have the Last Laugh

By Don Varyu, Sept. 22, 2025

You know the old saying about shooting yourself in the foot? There’s a bigger blunder called “shooting yourself in the face.” And that’s exactly what Donald Trump is risking right now by picking off late night TV hosts. These are victims who committed the unforgivable crime of telling the truth about Trump.

Thus, this moment also brings to mind another old saying: be careful what you wish for.

Of course, MAGA world is all aglee: “see—he finally stuck it to those bastards!” But the MAGAs cannot see what our supposed business genius of a President also cannot see. Those hosts aren’t going away; they’ll just move to new platforms. And in the process, the power of their words could get even stronger--dramatically stronger.
To explain, let’s do this in question-and-answer form.
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> If Trump's muzzled  some of his harshest critics, how could this be bad for him?
Unless Trump has their tongues cut out (I’m not saying that couldn't happen), Kimmel and Colbert and any future targets will be back—and more motivated and more acerbic than ever. It’s easy to find new studios, and their creative staffs and live audiences can easily tag along with them.

> OK, but even if those guys do return, where are they going to find platforms like those big networks?
This part is easy because the legacy networks are not big anymore. They’re getting smaller every day, and they’ll shrink even further without their marquee late night hosts. In fact, while Trump thinks he’s killing off critics, he’s also accelerating the demise of the networks themselves. And he needs them.
Think about the network business model. First, attract big viewing audiences by producing popular programming. Traditionally, that included prime time blockbusters, evening network newscasts, the late-night variety shows, upbeat morning shows, daytime gameshows/soap operas, live sports, and special event coverage.
Next, charge advertisers dearly for access to those huge audiences. It was once so easy—and ridiculously profitable. In one station I worked for back in the golden days, a friend who worked in sales told me, “I don’t really sell anything. All I do is just answer the phone and print money.”
But currently, that veneer on broadcast TV isn’t gold anymore—it’s tarnish.
All of the legendary hits in broadcast history—Seinfeld and Friends and Roots and Cheers and I Love Lucy—they all had the same drawback. In order to see them, you had to be in front of your television at one specific time. No exceptions.
Once video cassette recorders and then DVRs and finally instant reruns and excerpts on the internet arrived, people could “time shift” their viewing. TV wasn’t communal anymore; it was convenient. And in the process, viewers could typically fast forward right through all the expensive commercials that advertisers were paying millions to produce and air. Predictably, ad revenues declined and so did the prospects for old fashioned TV.
Today, the popularity of video entertainment on streaming services )purple on the graph below) dwarfs that on broadcast TV (orange). Nearly all of the highest-rated shows now broadcast on the old networks are live sports; people are willing to sit through the commercials in order to see the action live.
Here are the comparatie Nielsen ratings from earlier this year. It puts things in perspective:

One relevant proof point to add: Jimmy Kimmel’s content on YouTube had 20 million subscribers. Live viewing of his show on ABC had averaged less than two million. 
Once the broadcast TV share of this chart would have been 100%--because that’s all the TV there was. Today, the party’s nearly over for broadcast, and nobody’s figured out a way yet to keep the music going.

> Well, even if the networks go belly-up, what does Trump care? He would be happy if viewers just had Fox News to watch.
Fox “news” is not a broadcast network; it’s a cable channel. Neither the FCC nor any other arm of government realistically can “pull its license.”
In addition, there are some people who simply can’t afford cable, and some in rural areas who still require programming delivery over the airwaves. The old TV networks are the only behicles who can do this. If networks go away, Trump loses access to an important portion of his cult.
 
 
> Fine, but let’s get real. Colbert and Kimmel are not going to have the same reach—or make the same kind of money--doing YouTube clips and random, scattered podcasts.
Well, I think you’re missing something here. Let me paint the absolute nightmare scenario for Trump and all of his hapless followers.
Imagine that everything people still love on broadcast TV winds up in one, handy spot. This thing is a video behemoth. Think of those talented performers and creators, divorced from their former broadcast overlords, doing shows renamed “61 Minutes” and “Beat the Press” and “Good Morning USA” (not to mention Colbert and Kimmel) moving to this one location, offering one-stop convenience. This could be a “network” powerhouse like no other in history. It could be big enough to construct the largest global news gathering organization in history. It could have all the best TV entertainment. It could compete for live sports rights for everything from the Olympics to the Super Bowl. Without the old networks, who would be left to bid against?

> Sure, that’s a lovely pipedream, but you’re delusional. Who in the world could afford all this? We certainly don’t need Elon Musk running the entire viewing world.
Fair enough. But I’ll give you a one-word answer: Netflix.
It’s hard to imagine how wealthy and powerful Netflix  already is. It’s the eighth largest company in America. It’s larger than Exxon; larger than Coke; larger than Bank of America. It’s larger than American Express and AT&T put together.
And more to the point, it’s larger than the current network parent companies: Comcast (NBC), Disney (ABC), Paramount Skydance  (CBS), and Fox (Fox “News”)—combined!
Netflix could easily pay to create Netflix TV or the Netflix Network (or whatever they’d want to call it). And they can do it without much financial strain. Netflix is already worth half a trillion dollars. Plus, it would not have to be a charity—by doing this, Netflix could make more money—a lot of it.
They already have a mass audience with a global installed base of 230 million subscribers. In America alone, 73 million people watch Netflix every day...on screens both big and small. Their app is already exactly where they need it—right at subscribers’ fingertips. All they’d need to do is update it with a new button for their TV arm.
Back of the envelope math looks like this: say 50 million of those 73 million U.S. subscribers decide to pony up just two more dollars a month to get all their TV content. That’s 1.2 billion dollars a year to underwrite this new TV side—and that doesn’t consider a penny from the rest of the world. Nor does it count revenues it will get from the ads it would run on its basic, “with ads” plan.
Yes, start-up costs would be considerable. But again, Netflix can afford it.

> But wouldn’t Trump just crush this, too?
Nope, for two reasons. First, because Netflix is streamed instead of broadcast, the FCC and the government as a whole has no direct lever to block content. There is no transmitter to shut off.
Second, Netflix was co-founded by Reed Hastings, a died-in-the-wool progressive. He has donated considerable money to campaigns and initiatives, while publicly speaking out exactly the way any progressive voter would want him to.

> Yeah, but Elon Musk is rich enough to do this himself, right?
On paper, yes. But if you were Kimmel or a network news anchor or the hosts and reporters of 60 Minutes…wouldn’t you rather work for Reed Hastings?

> Alright, bottom line: do you have any idea whether Netflix would even want to do this?
I do not.

> So, last question: are there any downsides to this plan?
Off the bat, I can think of two.
First, the existing networks don’t have one gigantic tower broadcasting to everyone in America. They distribute through a collection of hundreds of local stations, most independently owned. If the networks fail altogether, so do those local stations.
And in the process (and most importantly), also disappearing would be their local news gathering operations. In a country where many places are only served by a single newspaper—or often none—it’s hard to imagine how people could hear about what's happening in their cities and towns. Maybe the existing network of PBS stations could be beefed up and adequately funded.
Secondly, untold thousands of jobs would disappear for people “making television” on both a network and local scale. A Netflix TV entity could employ some of them—but still only a small percentage. In truth, cost-cutting and AI are already fueling this job decline.
I trust there are workarounds here I haven’t thought of. 
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In the end, Trump’s banishment of the comedians will be a self-inflicted wound. If Bill Maher and John Oliver and Jon Stewart can survive and stand tall, arguably talents like Kimmel and Colbert will stand taller. They will find their new platforms.

 And eventually enough people will understand that our depraved emperor has no clothes.
And no one would ever want to see what that looks like--except maybe Jeffrey Epstein alongside Trump approaching a couple of companions “on the younger side.”

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