Jimmy Kimmel doesn't think there's a "snowball's chance in hell" that Colbert was losing money

He might have an invested stake in late-night TV enterprise, but Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t believe CBS and Paramount’s reason for canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was “a purely financial decision.” The Late Show remains the format’s most popular program, and, in fact, makes lots of money, according to Kimmel. Speaking to Variety, Kimmel calls reports that Colbert’s show was losing $40 million a year “beyond nonsensical.” How does he know? He makes one of these. Apparently, “these alleged insiders” analyzing budgets don’t know what they’re talking about, Kimmel argues. For one thing, they focus solely on advertising and ignore affiliate fees. Affiliate fees, or carriage fees, generate hundreds of millions of dollars—”probably in total billions”—from stations around the country. Those station affiliates cannot produce as much programming as NBC, so they pay the network for programming, which includes late-night shows. “You must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows,” he continues. “It really is surprising how little the media seems to know about how the media works. There’s just not a snowball’s chance in hell that that’s anywhere near accurate.”