Like every sane American, I am outraged that CBS/Paramount/Ellison Inc. canceled — in the true meaning of the word — Stephen Colbert, capitulating to Trump in the rapid Orbanization of American media.
Here I propose what I hope comes next for Colbert: that he build his own show and empire online. And I’ll tell for the first time of my foiled attempt, back in the day, to broker a deal for Howard Stern TV on the internet.
But first, allow me to briefly address the state of mass media.
Mass media are dead. Larry Ellison and son merely threw another shovelful of dirt on the coffin. Most newspaper chains are owned by hedge funds, cut to the stump and useless. Magazines are in hospice (I chronicle their fall in my book Magazinenow an audiobook!). Our national news, The Times and The Post — are irreparably broken. Terrestrial radio is the tower that falls in the forest, which nobody hears. Broadcast TV is the cultural Kmart. Cable has cooties. Streaming is sinking. Hollywood has no imagination. Books are suffering.
Trump is commandeering mass media because he thinks scale still makes stars and wields power. Joke’s on him: He’ll end up controlling a crumbling, cowardly relic of an age that opened in 1893, when magazine publisher Frank Munsey invented the attention economy, and began to close in 1993, with Mosaic and the link, which allow us all to become publishers. The masses don’t need media anymore. The masses are media.
The question is whether we — the people formerly seen as masses — can protect our voices and our independence from fascist authoritarians and craven capitalists. Colbert could lead the way by making his own, independent media.
This leads me to the story of Howard Stern and the internet. I think enough time has passed that I may recount it. One day in 2010, I got a call from Howard’s beloved and fabled agent, the late Don Buchwald. In 2006, Howard had left the censorious airwaves of terrestrial radio for Sirius’ satellites. His first contract coming due, Buchwald the master negotiator was looking for options and likely leverage.
I had written then about my hope that Howard would become monarch of the web. When Howard answered my calls on-air, I tried to convince him that he could be the king of all podcasters. “I hate podcasts,” he said. “A jerk-off sitting in his living room talking for hours. If I wanted that, I’d get married.” He mocked me for podcasting. Fine. He also mocked Joe Rogan for podcasting. Ah, well. (And he’s happily married.)
Buchwald, no doubt echoing Howard, had concerns about infrastructure if they tried to go it alone: making and serving so much video before ubiquitous broadband; selling subscriptions and ads. He wondered instead about YouTube and asked whether I could make connection. I emailed Eric Schmidt about Howard:
Just as he made satellite work as a business, I believe he could make the internet work as an entertainment medium at scale, with payment. I have no doubt that he’d bring some millions of paying fans with him and could make the business work at a very reasonable price point. And I think this could be wonderfully disruptive to the incumbent entertainment industry.
Schmidt replied, “obviously Howard would be a good partner for us if we can find a business structure that works.” He connected me with Robert Kyncl, who’d just arrived at YouTube from Netflix to head up TV and film relationships. I relayed my conversation to Buchwald:
He’s quite enthused about this and grateful that you’re coming to them. It’s “right up our alley,” he said, and they have “utmost interest.” They are looking at building subscription businesses around personalities so this is a great first move. He sees big potential for global subscription; what interests him is the ability to go global without the border restrictions other entertainment properties bring. He also respects the value of Howard; when he was at Netflix, he told me he’d lusted after Howard TV. Finally, he asked whether this would be a JV and I said I had nothing whatsoever to do with that; my involvement was strictly in making the connection and nothing more. But don’t you love it when they start negotiating already?
Four months later, Buchwald emailed me with an update, reporting that Kyncl “was unable to keep several appointments (mainly phone). So I finally gave up.” Show biz. Howard signed a next contract and a next and next with Sirius.
The lessons here: I still wish Howard had come online. But it’s just as well he didn’t do a big, exclusive deal with YouTube. This is why I would like to see Colbert come to the internet, not in some exclusive deal with YouTube or, please no, Substack. He can make his own home online, and from there post and stream on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, everywhere — exploiting others’ audiences while maintaining his independence.
As I lamented Colbert’s cancellation on the socials, some folks wondered whether he could go to Comedy Central. Sorry, I informed them, but guess who’s going to own it, too: Ellison the Trumpist. I worry, then, about Jon Stewart and the crew at The Daily Show at Comedy Central. I fret, too, about Jimmy Kimmel at blackmailed ABC/Disney.
Therein lies the key lesson, especially in this day: Stay away from any entity that could be pressured by and become beholden to the fascists in power. Trump even wants to censor “woke AI” (thus I will argue that if companies are people then AI has First Amendment rights — but I digress).
Buchwald was not wrong 15 years ago to worry about the complexity of starting an online media empire. But in the meantime, all necessary roads have been paved.
We on the left have long wished for our version of Rogan — not our ignorant, testosteroned asshole, but our popular, intelligent, and informed maypole of enlightenment to gather ’round in defense of democracy and decency. I wish that to be Colbert — and Kimmel and Stewart and Stern, plus Joy Ann Reid, Katie Phang, and other refugees from corporate, thus Republican media. I wish that to be on an open and free internet, where they can’t be bought and sold and silenced, and public discourse has its rightful proprietor: us, the public.
