Stephen Colbert Calls Out Paramount: $108 Billion for Warner Bros.—So Why Cancel The Late Show?

Stephen Colbert spent a chunk of his show doing what he does best: asking the obvious question out loud. If his parent company is flashing a $108 billion bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, why is his talk show on the chopping block? From there, the story gets messy, political, and very... corporate.

Colbert to Paramount: If you have $108B lying around, why cancel my show?

During a recent Late Show, Colbert brought up the reported hostile offer to fully acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for around $108 billion and used it to jab the bean counters.

"Wow. I gotta say, if my company's got that kind of green, I'm sure they can afford to un-cancel one of their best shows."

He also said a sizable chunk of the proposed financing was tied to sovereign wealth money from the Middle East, singling out Saudi Arabia as having a big part in the pile. Those specifics have not been independently verified here, but that's the claim he made on air.

The Trump angle, per Colbert

Colbert has a theory about why his show reportedly isn't coming back after the current season: he thinks the parent company wants to stay on the good side of President Donald Trump. That speculation ramped up after Trump publicly cheered the show's cancellation on social media and after Colbert spoke to GQ about a separate legal dust-up.

"I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation — I'm not going to say who made that decision, because I don't know; no one's ever going to tell us — decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount's own lawyers, said is completely without merit."

That is Colbert's read on it. Public-facing trade coverage has framed the Late Show decision as economics. The company has not publicly confirmed the political angle.

The deal rumors that poured gas on the fire

If you're confused, you're not alone. Here's the swirl that fed the discourse:

• Reports said Paramount moved in with a hostile $108 billion offer to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
• At the same time, separate chatter online claimed Netflix had its own massive bid in the mix — even painting it as an $82.7 billion takeover in some corners — which made Paramount's push look extra aggressive by comparison.
• One report tied Jared Kushner to back-channel conversations favoring a company competing with Netflix in that bidding scrum. Colbert pointed to that as more smoke around the politics.
• Colbert also argued that more than a quarter of the Paramount bid's money was coming from Middle East sovereign funds, and he specifically mentioned Saudi Arabia.
• Amid all of this, Paramount's social media was briefly hacked; the X bio was changed by the intruders to label the company as fascists before being corrected.

Why some viewers say they'd rather see Netflix win

The online sentiment has been pretty blunt: people wary of Paramount point to the alleged Saudi financing, the Trump-era politics Colbert called out, and even the idea that the Ellison family's conservative leanings could influence content. That last part is speculation from commenters, not something the companies have confirmed. The counterargument in favor of Netflix is basically: they're more flexible, they move with audience data, and they don't come with the same perceived political baggage — so if someone has to buy WBD, better them than Paramount.

Where that leaves The Late Show

The headline for Colbert fans is simple and frustrating: he says the show won't be renewed after the current season, and he thinks the reason goes beyond budgets. Whether that sticks or gets walked back once the merger smoke clears is anyone's guess. For now, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — 11 seasons in, sitting at a 7.1/10 on IMDb — is still on the air and streaming in the U.S. on Paramount+.