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Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> ripped reports that the \u201cLate Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d was annually losing tens of millions of dollars, weeks after CBS<\/a> claimed it was \u201cpurely a financial decision\u201d to cancel its decades-old late-night franchise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThese alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows \u2014 I don\u2019t know who they are, but I do know they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about,\u201d Kimmel said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kimmel \u2014 a late-night fixture since 2003 \u2014 explained that the analysis seemed to only focus on advertising revenue and not affiliate fees (the money that TV providers pay to networks to carry their channels), which can amount to \u201chundreds of millions\u201d and possibly \u201cbillions\u201d of dollars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAnd you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt really is surprising how little the media seems to know about how the media works. There\u2019s just not a snowball\u2019s chance in hell that that\u2019s anywhere near accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He continued to question the reported financial woes of the \u201cLate Show.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren\u2019t making any money \u2014 and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWho knows what\u2019s true? All I know is they keep paying us \u2014 and that\u2019s kind of all you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Kimmel \u2014 when later asked about the narrative that late-night TV is \u201cdead\u201d \u2014 argued that even if it\u2019s a \u201cdeclining\u201d format, more people are watching such programs than ever before, pointing to the millions of views that his colleagues see on YouTube and streaming platforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSo the idea that late-night is dead is simply untrue,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n His comments arrive about a month following CBS\u2019s shock announcement, which sparked speculation<\/a> that the program was axed for political reasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the time, CBS parent company Paramount Global, which had already paid Donald Trump<\/a> $16 million over his \u201c60 Minutes\u201d lawsuit, was seeking the approval of a Trump-favoring Federal Communications Commission chair to complete a multibillion-dollar merger<\/a> with Skydance Media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 20 Years Of<\/span>Free<\/span>Journalism<\/span><\/p>\n Your Support Fuels Our Mission<\/p>\n Your Support Fuels Our Mission<\/p>\n