Late Show With David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer is just as stunned as viewers are that CBS is canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and the entire Late Show franchise.
“Shocking. Absolutely shocking,” Shaffer said of the decision in a recent Entertainment Weekly interview. “That’s all I can say. I mean, I don’t know what more to say about it. Stephen Colbert was absolutely number one.”
Shaffer was a CBS employee for decades, leading the CBS Orchestra and serving as David Letterman’s sidekick for the host’s entire Late Show run, from 1993 to 2015. Previously, Shaffer filled the same role on Letterman’s NBC show, Late Night With David Letterman, from 1982 to 1993.
And the musician thinks the end of The Late Show might indeed portend the end of late-night talk shows. “I wouldn’t be surprised if those doom-sayers that are saying it signifies the end of the Late Show-type of thing, you know, late night television, it’s over,” he told EW. “People will watch clips on their computers, and it all makes sense to me. I’m glad that I was in and out of there while the getting was good.”
Letterman, for his part, criticized his former network, saying on his YouTube channel that he doesn’t believe CBS’ claims that the decision to cancel the Late Show franchise was purely economic. He said CBS was showing “pure cowardice” following parent company Paramount’s $16 million payment to Donald Trump to settle the president’s lawsuit over CBS’ 60 Minutes.
“I think one day, if not today, the people at CBS who have manipulated and handled this are going to be embarrassed,” Letterman added. “This is gutless.”
Former Late Night host Conan O’Brien said at a Television Academy event last month (per The Hollywood Reporter) that “late night television as we have known it since around 1950 is going to disappear,” but he wasn’t concerned about Colbert. “Those voices are not going anywhere,” he explained. “People like Stephen Colbert are too talented and too essential to go away.”
But Jimmy Kimmel, ABC’s resident late-night host, thinks the post-11-p.m. segment of the television industry will survive. “Network television is declining. There’s no question about that,” he told Variety last month. “The idea that late-night is dead is simply untrue. People just aren’t watching it on network television in the numbers they used to — or live, for that matter. So the advertising model may be dying, but late-night television is the opposite.”