Posts Tagged ‘COMCAST’
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2026 at 12:10 am
On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ Late Night With Stephen Colbert, said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.”
Meanwhile, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS Network, wanted to merge with Skydance Media.
For this, it needed the regulatory permission of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the Trump administration.
On July 17, CBS cancelled the highest-rated late-night show on television with 2.4 million nightly viewers. It had also been nominated for 33 Emmys.
Addressing his in-house and television audience on July 17, Colbert announced: “I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.
“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
In a statement, Paramount/CBS called the cancellation a purely financial decision: “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert did not directly accuse his bosses of bowing to pressure from the FCC. But he did offer this insightful comment: “Less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”
What “changed” was that after CBS cancelled one of Trump’s biggest critics, the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was quickly approved by the FCC.
David Letterman had hosted The Late Show with David Letterman from August 30, 1993, until his retirement on May 20, 2015. In a May 5, 2025 interview with the New York Times, he didn’t mince words about what he felt was behind the cancellation:
Colbert “was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'”
CBS is one of the most profitable broadcast networks in the United States, through massive advertising revenue, affiliate fees, and sports broadcast rights.
Yet the owners of its parent company, Paramount Global—whose revenue stood at $29.2 billion in 2024—felt they could enrich themselves even more by acquiring Skydance Media.
And if siding with a dictatorial administration to strike a blow at freedom of speech was necessary to make the deal go forward, so be it.
The Ed Sullivan Theater, where Stephen Colbert reigned for 11 years
Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Disney didn’t reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live! out of a steadfast commitment to the First Amendment. It did so only after a massive public backlash led to a widespread boycott of subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu—and a steep drop in Disney’s stock value.
Stephen Colbert had no such reprieve. But he never—at least not in public—lost his poise. He often joked about the upcoming end of his show, endured jokes from his guests about it—and never stopped speaking truth to power at the expense of the Trump administration.
“The only choice you have is how to walk through it,” said his friend and mentor, Jon Stewart, as he and Colbert gazed into a fictitious green wormhole. “You can go in kicking and screaming. Or you can do what you’ve done for the past 30 years when faced with something dark: You stare it down and you can laugh.”
On his last night as host of The Late Show Colbert did exactly that, turning what could have been a mournful event into a celebration of joy and defiance.
Stephen Colbert Signs off “Late Show” with Emotional Goodbye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znec-DIff8o
There had been speculation that Colbert, a devout Catholic, might book Pope Leo XIV for his final show. So Colbert turned it into a gag. He pretended that he was about to bring out the pope for an interview—only to be told the Pontiff was refusing to come out of his dressing room.
“We got him the wrong snacks,” an unidentified voice informed him.
“Who’s going to be my last guest now?” asked Colbert—to be answered by Paul McCartney: “Hey, Stephen, what about me?”
Massive applause resounded as the former Beatle walked onstage.
Stephen Colbert and Paul McCartney
McCartney not only served as Colbert’s last interview guest but as his musical one as well. And McCartney led the band—and the audience—in a rousing number of “Hello, Goodbye,” the Beatles’ 1967 hit:
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Members of the audience—probably including relatives of the show’s cast—swarmed onto the stage to join McCartney, Colbert and the band in what was an act of celebration and defiance: “When faced with something dark, you stare it down and you can laugh.”
Thus Stephen Colbert went gentle—and triumphant—into that good night.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him. —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Watching the last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was like watching a slow-motion execution—where the victim turns his demise into a rousing revival meeting.
That episode, shown on Thursday, May 21, capped a hugely successful run of 10 years and eight months (September 8, 2015 to May 21, 2026). Broadcast on CBS against ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night ranked as the highest-rated American late-night talk show.
And it held that ranking for nine consecutive seasons, marking the longest such streak in franchise history.
Stephen Colbert
But for all the adoring fans Colbert attracted during those years, he acquired one enemy who never forgot or forgave the slightest insult. And from 2015 onward, Colbert showered him with humorous, deadly accurate insults calculated to get under his paper-thin skin and stay there.
That enemy was Donald J. Trump.
Colbert started throwing thousands of barbs at Trump immediately after the real estate mogul launched his first campaign for President on June 16, 2015. These focused on Trump’s appearance, intelligence, family, policy shifts, criminality, legal troubles and commercial ventures.
Among the barbs:
- “It’s true, this [Iran] war reached all of its objectives. It’s been weeks since anyone mentioned the Epstein files.”
- After Trump threatened to destroy Iran but then agreed to a brief pause, Colbert paraphrased John Lennon’s famous peace anthem, singing: “All we are saying, is peace for two weeks.”
- “For my MAGA viewers. The Trump golden cell phone has FINALLY arrived after a nine month delay. And it SUCKS. The only Trump item more disappointing after a nine-month wait was Eric!”
- Colbert often joked about Trump’s short attention span, comparing his mind to “nature’s most cunning opponent, the goldfish.”
- Following Trump’s 34 felony convictions on May 30, 2024, for falsifying business records, Colbert joked that Trump had “more felonies than Baskin-Robbins has flavors.”
Donald Trump
Colbert had a biting wit that never flinched at speaking truth to—and about—power. But Trump had a weapon that Colbert couldn’t match: Command of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
And in its chair, Brendan Carr, he had a crony willing to destroy any network that dared to offend his thin-skinned boss, Donald Trump.
Knowing Trump’s animosity toward nonwhites, Carr has brutally attacked any network-related company promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). He ordered investigations into Comcast and the Walt Disney Company and threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license over the practices.
On September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
In September 2025, Carr pressured Disney, which owns ABC, to suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel over comments he had made about the assassination. On September 17, Disney caved and suspended Kimmel.
Brendan Carr
Kimmel had actually called the murder “senseless.” What enraged Right-wing Americans was Kimmel’s noting that “the MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
This was actually true—and all the more embarrassing to Republicans because of it. The Trump administration and its MAGA cult have tried to portray Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, as a radical liberal.
He is not.
Debbie Robinson, his grandmother, said most of the family are Republicans—and that Tyler’s father, Matt, is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.
Disney/ABC reinstated The Jimmy Kimmel Show on September 23 after a massive public backlash, a steep drop in Disney’s stock value, and a widespread Hollywood boycott.
Unable to remove Kimmel, Carr moved on against Colbert in a more subtle manner.
He knew that Paramount Global wanted to merge with Skydance Media. And Paramount is the parent company of CBS Network, which hosted The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Jimmy Kimmel
Paramount had recently paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit he had brought against the CBS news show, 60 Minutes. He claimed that it had misleadingly edited a pre-election interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris to boost her election chances in 2024. CBS’ attorneys and a number of legal experts had said that the lawsuit was “completely without merit.”
On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Colbert said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.
“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.”
Colbert didn’t know it, but the axe was about to fall.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Social commentary on January 31, 2023 at 12:10 am
It’s hardly a national security secret: Corporations don’t want to talk to their customers.
Their love is reserved exclusively for their customers’ wallets.
Don’t believe it?
In mid-January I called Verizon Communications to report a disgraceful experience at one of its stores. Fifteen minutes later, with no one deigning to pick up the phone, I hung up.
I decided that Verizon’s CEO, Hans Vestberg, should know how irresponsibly his company was operating. So I sought an email address for him on Verizon’s website.
Naturally, the website refused to provide such an address.
Fortunately, its corporate headquarters address was available.
Hans Vestberg
Pombo Photography, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
So that’s where I sent my letter. Its contents:
On January 13, I had a thoroughly despicable experience while visiting your store at [EXCISED].
I currently have an Alcotel flip-phone provided by your company and wanted to upgrade this to a better-quality one. Through Verizon’s Instant Messaging service on Twitter, one of your customer service reps had recommended the Kyocera DuraXV Estreme Prepaid phone.
But when I entered your store one of your representatives told me:
- That phone had been discontinued; and
- I should get the latest model of this.
The rep said one of these was available. But when I asked to see it, he held up a box with a picture of the phone on it and said he couldn’t open the box until I bought it.
I told him I wouldn’t pay for something I couldn’t even see before I bought it. When I’m thinking of buying a book I want to see how well-written it is before I make a purchase.
I said: “If I just wanted to look at a photo I could have done this on my computer.”
He said that I might be able to see one at Best Buy because the Verizon store I was visiting doesn’t have a display model of the kind of phone I wanted. But they had plenty of iPhones—which of course cost far more—on display.
The rep then tried to pressure me into buying an iPhone, saying it would be cheaper than the one I was interested in.
I told him I wanted a simple phone, without a lot of needless bells and whistles. In addition, the size of a flip phone better fits my hand than does an iPhone.
Verizon’s headquarters in New York City
Eden, Janine and Jim from New York City, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He told me that the phone I wanted could be bought for about $7 a month, which would stretch to about 36 months. I asked him if I could pay it off in larger sums, so I could get the purchase out of the way more quickly.
He said no, and to my surprise explained why: It was Verizon’s way to ensure the customer stayed with the company for at least that length of time.
In short: Verizon doesn’t count on its superior technology and service to retain consumer loyalty.
The rep said I should have phoned the office before coming in, so someone could tell me they didn’t have on display any phones I wanted to see.
I replied that in the past I had phoned that office—and found they didn’t deign to answer their phones.
Again to my surprise, he admitted that that was actually the store’s policy.
To which I replied: “So you sell phones—but you don’t deign to answer your own phones.”
Needless to say, I left without buying anything.
On January 25, I got a call from a secretary at Verizon.
She wanted to let me know that CEO Vestberg had gotten my letter.
First, she apologized for the difficulties I had encountered.
Then she sympathized with my desire to see an expensive cell phone before I actually bought it. She said that her mother felt exactly the same way when she wanted to buy something.
But when I asked her what Verizon intended to do to correct these outrages, she offered nothing.
Clearly she expected me to be fully satisfied with a pro-forma apology—and nothing else.
I explained that an apology is an admission of failure—and without an effort to correct that failure, the “apology” means nothing.
The secretary simply offered her original apology on behalf of Verizon.
“Thank you for calling,” I said, and hung up.
That same week, a friend of mine named Dave had a similar disappointing encounter with Comcast. He wanted to file a change of address with the company.
And, like me, he found it impossible to reach anyone by phone.
So he got onto Comcast’s website on Twitter—and left a message: “Why is it so hard to get someone at your stores to answer the phone? Have you considered hiring a few operators?”
About five minutes later, Dave got a call—from Comcast.
Apparently the company monitors Twitter 24/7, but doesn’t feel the need to hire enough operators to man its phone banks.
So Dave finally got to make his change-of-address.
Moral: If you can embarrass a company on Twitter, Yelp! or other social media website, chances are it will treat you with the respect it should have shown in the first place.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2020 at 12:05 am
As the United States braces for the loss of as many as 200,000 of its citizens, President Donald Trump continues to attack anything he dislikes as a “hoax”—and to attack anyone who dares pose legitimate questions to him.
On March 27, this exchange occurred between Trump and ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl.
Karl asked Trump what the President could do to assure “these states, these hospitals, that everybody who needs a ventilator will get a ventilator.”
TRUMP: “I think we’re in really good shape. This is a pandemic, the likes of which nobody’s seen before.”
KARL: “But everybody who needs one will be able to get a ventilator?”
TRUMP: “Look, don’t be a cutie pie, okay? Nobody’s done what we’ve been able to do.”
One week earlier, on March 20, Trump had blown up when NBC reporter Peter Alexander dared to pose a question about Coronavirus that the President didn’t want to answer.
After citing the latest pandemic statistics showing that thousands of Americans are now infected and millions are scared, Alexander asked, “What do you say to Americans who are scared?”
TRUMP: “I say that you’re a terrible reporter. That’s what I say. I think it’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. You’re doing sensationalism. And the same with NBC and Comcast [the parent company of NBC]. I don’t call it Comcast. I call it ‘Con-Cast. Let me just tell you something. That’s really bad reporting. And you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.”
Alexander said in a statement: “The bottom line is, this is a president whose experiences in life are very different than most Americans across this country right now. Not a person who likely worries about finances or had, not a person who in the course of his life is worried about his future.
“Not a person who is worried about where to find a paycheck for his bills or for his rent and as evidenced by the president suggesting that an opportunity to provide for American some reassurance about how they should feel right now, the president instead took it out on me.”
That’s why this is a good time to remember the closing remarks of Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) before the House of Representatives turned over its Articles of Impeachment against Trump to the United States Senate.
Schiff was addressing the unwillingness of Trump—and his defenders—to accept any evidence, no matter how damning, against him.
ADAM SCHIFF: “Anyone watching these proceedings, anyone reading the deposition transcripts would have the same impression that you evidently had from hearing my colleagues talk about the Russia hoax, that the whole idea that Russia had gotten involved in the 2016 election was a hoax put out by the Democrats.
“And of course, they’re not alone in pushing out this idea; it is trumpeted by no one other than the President of the United States who, almost on a daily basis at times, would comment and tweet and propagate the idea that Russia’s interference in our election was a hoax….
“The impression they would have you take from ‘It’s all hearsay’ is, because we in this committee were not in that Ward Room with you, Dr. Hill, we were not in that meeting earlier with Dr. Bolton, that because we’re not in the room, it’s all hearsay.
Adam Schiff
“After all, you’re relating what you heard, and you’re saying it, so it must be hearsay, and therefore, we don’t really have to think about it, do we? We don’t have to consider that you have direct evidence that this meeting in the White House was being withheld because the president wanted these meetings, these investigations. We can’t accept that.
“Well, if that were true, you could never present any evidence in court unless the jury was also in the Ward Room. That’s absurd. They don’t accept the documentary evidence, all the text messages about quid pro quos, and ‘Are we really saying,’ and ‘That’s crazy,’ and ‘My worst nightmare is the Russians will get it, and I’ll quit.’
“…But apparently, it’s all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the president, Mr. Holmes, that’s hearsay. We can’t rely on people saying what the president said. Apparently, we can only rely on what the president says, and there, we shouldn’t even rely on that either.
“We shouldn’t really rely on what the president said in the call record. We should imagine he said something else. We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption, instead of what he actually said, which was, “’I want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and I want you to look into the Bidens.’”
For those who want to understand Trump’s behavior—and to predict how he will react the next time he’s faced with truths he doesn’t want to acknowledge—the key lies in seeing how he had reacted to bad tidings in the past.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Self-Help, Social commentary on July 29, 2016 at 12:17 am
In 1970, Robert Townsend, the CEO who had turned around a failing rent-a-car company called Avis, published what is arguably the best book written on business management.
It’s Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation From Stiffling People and Strangling Profits.
Though published 46 years ago, it should be required reading–for CEOs and consumers.
Don’t fear getting bogged down in a sea of boring, theory-ridden material. As Townsend writes:
“This book is in alphabetical order. Using the table of contents, which doubles as the Index, you can locate any subject on the list in 13 seconds. And you can read all I have to say about it in five minutes or less.
“This is not a book about how organizations work. What should happen in organizations and what does happen are two different things and about as far apart as they can get. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HOW TO GET THEM TO RUN THREE TIMES AS WELL AS THEY DO.”
Comcast is the majority owner of NBC and the largest cable operator in the United States. It provides cable TV, Internet and phone service to more than 50 million customers.
So you would think that, with so many customers to serve, Comcast would create an efficient way for them to attain help when they face a problem with billing or service.
Think again.
Consider the merits of Townsend’s short chapter on “Call Yourself Up.”
Townsend advises CEOs:“Pretend you’re a customer. Telephone some part of your organization and ask for help. You’ll run into some real horror shows.”
Now, imagine what would happen if Brian L. Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, did just that.
Brian L. Roberts
First, he would find that, at Comcast, nobody actually answers the phone when a customer calls. After all, it’s so much easier to fob off customers with pre-recorded messages than to have operators directly serve their needs.
And customers simply aren’t that important–except when they’re paying their ever-inflated bills for phone, cable TV and/or Internet service.
Comcast’s revenues stood at $19.25 billion for the fourth quarter of 2015.
In 2015, Roberts earned $36.2 million in salary, options and other compensation, a 10% increase from 2014.
So it isn’t as though the company can’t afford hiring a few operators and instructing them to answer phones directly when people phone in.
But instead of being directly connected to someone able to answer his question or resolve his problem, Roberts would hear:
“Welcome to Comcast–home of Xfinity.”
Then he would hear an annoying clucking sound–followed by the same message in Spanish.
“Your call may be recorded for quality assurance.
“To make a payment now, Press 1. To continue this call, Press 2.”
Then he would hear: “For technical help, press 1, for billing, press 2. For more options, press 3.”
Assuming he pressed 2 for “billing,” he would hear:
“For payment, press 1 For balance information, press 2. For payment locations, press 3. For all other billing questions, press 4.”
Then he would be told: “Please enter the last four digits of the primary account holder’s Social Security Number.”
Then, as if he hadn’t waited long enough to talk to someone, he would get this message: “Press 1 if you would like to take a short survey after your call.”
By the time he heard that, he would almost certainly not be in a mood to take a survey. He would simply want someone to come onto the phone and answer his question or resolve his problem.
Then he would hear: “At the present time, all agents are busy”–and be electronically given an estimate by when someone might deign to answer the phone.
“Please hold for the next customer account executive.”
If he wanted to immediately reach a Comcast rep, Roberts would press the number for “sales.” A sales rep would gladly sign him up for more costly products–even if he couldn’t solve whatever problem Roberts needed addressed.
Assuming that someone actually came on, Roberts couldn’t fail to notice the unmistakable Indian accent of the rep he was now speaking with.
Not Indian as in American Indian-because that would mean his company had actually hired Americans who must be paid at least a minimum American wage for their services.
No, Comcast, like many other supposedly patriotic corporations, “outsources” its “customer service support team” to the nation, India.
After all, if the “outsourced” employees are getting paid a pittance, the CEO and his top associates can rake in all the more.
Of course, the above scenario is totally outlandish–and is meant to be.
Who would expect the wealthy CEO of a major American corporation to actually wait in a telephone queue like an ordinary American Joe or Jane?
That would be like expecting the chief of any major police department to put up with hookers or panhandlers on his own doorstep.
For the wealthy and the powerful, there are always underlings ready and willing to ensure that their masters do not suffer the same indignities as ordinary mortals.
Such as the ones who sign up for Comcast TV, cable or Internet services.
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In Business, Self-Help, Social commentary on December 12, 2014 at 12:01 am
In 1970, Robert Townsend, the CEO who had turned around a failing rent-a-car company called Avis, published what is arguably the best book written on business management.
It’s Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits.
Though published 42 years ago, it should be required reading–for CEOs and consumers.
Don’t fear getting bogged down in a sea of boring, theory-ridden material. As Townsend writes:
“This book is in alphabetical order. Using the table of contents, which doubles as the Index, you can locate any subject on the list in 13 seconds. And you can read all I have to say about it in five minutes or less.
“This is not a book about how organizations work. What should happen in organizations and what does happen are two different things and about as far apart as they can get. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT HOW TO GET THEM TO RUN THREE TIMES AS WELL AS THEY DO.”
Comcast is the majority owner of NBC and the largest cable operator in the United States. It provides cable TV, Internet and phone service to more than 50 million customers.
So you would think that, with so many customers to serve, Comcast would create an efficient way for them to attain help when they face a problem with billing or service.
Think again.
Consider the merits of Townsend’s short chapter on “Call Yourself Up.”
Townsend advises CEOs: “Pretend you’re a customer. Telephone some part of your organization and ask for help. You’ll run into some real horror shows.”
Now, imagine what would happen if Brian L. Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, did just that.
Brian L. Roberts
First, he would find that, at Comcast, nobody actually answers the phone when a customer calls. After all, it’s so much easier to fob off customers with pre-recorded messages than to have operators directly serve their needs.
And customers simply aren’t that important–except when they’re paying their ever-inflated bills for phone, cable TV and/or Internet service.
Comcast’s revenues stood at $16.8 billion for the third quarter of 2014.
In 2013, Roberts earned $31.4 million in salary, options and other compensation, a 7.7% increase from his $29.1 million compensation package in 2012.
So it isn’t as though the company can’t afford hiring a few operators and instructing them to answer phones directly when people phone in.
But instead of being directly connected to someone able to answer his question or resolve his problem, Roberts would hear:
“Welcome to Comcast–home of Xfinity.”
Then he would hear an annoying clucking sound–followed by the same message in Spanish.
“Your call may be recorded for quality assurance.
“To make a payment now, Press 1. To continue this call, Press 2.”
Then he would hear: “For technical help, press 1, for billing, press 2. For more options, press 3.”
Assuming he pressed 2 for “billing,” he would hear:
“For payment, press 1 For balance information, press 2. For payment locations, press 3. For all other billing questions, press 4.”
Then he would be told: “Please enter the last four digits of the primary account holder’s Social Security Number.”
Then, as if he hadn’t waited long enough to talk to someone, he would get this message: “Press 1 if you would like to take a short survey after your call.”
By the time he heard that, he would almost certainly not be in a mood to take a survey. He would simply want someone to come onto the phone and answer his question or resolve his problem.
Then he would hear: “At the present time, all agents are busy”–and be electronically given an estimate by when someone might deign to answer the phone.
“Please hold for the next customer account executive.”
If he wanted to immediately reach a Comcast rep, Roberts would press the number for “sales.” A sales rep would gladly sign him up for more costly products–even if he couldn’t solve whatever problem Roberts needed addressed.
Assuming that someone actually came on, Roberts couldn’t fail to notice the unmistakable Indian accent of the rep he was now speaking with.
Not Indian as in American Indian–because that would mean his company had actually hired Americans who must be paid at least a minimum American wage for their services.
No, Comcast, like many other supposedly patriotic corporations, “outsources” its “customer service support team” to the nation, India.
After all, if the “outsourced” employees are getting paid a pittance, the CEO and his top associates can rake in all the more.
Of course, the above scenario is totally outlandish–and is meant to be.
Who would expect the wealthy CEO of a major American corporation to actually wait in a telephone queue like an ordinary American Joe or Jane?
That would be like expecting the chief of any major police department to put up with hookers or panhandlers on his own doorstep.
For the wealthy and the powerful, there are always underlings ready and willing to ensure that their masters do not suffer the same indignities as ordinary mortals.
Such as the ones who sign up for Comcast TV, cable or Internet services.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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STEPHEN COLBERT: TRIUMPHANT IN DEFEAT: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2026 at 12:10 amOn July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ Late Night With Stephen Colbert, said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.”
Meanwhile, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS Network, wanted to merge with Skydance Media.
For this, it needed the regulatory permission of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the Trump administration.
On July 17, CBS cancelled the highest-rated late-night show on television with 2.4 million nightly viewers. It had also been nominated for 33 Emmys.
Addressing his in-house and television audience on July 17, Colbert announced: “I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.
“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
In a statement, Paramount/CBS called the cancellation a purely financial decision: “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert did not directly accuse his bosses of bowing to pressure from the FCC. But he did offer this insightful comment: “Less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”
What “changed” was that after CBS cancelled one of Trump’s biggest critics, the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was quickly approved by the FCC.
David Letterman had hosted The Late Show with David Letterman from August 30, 1993, until his retirement on May 20, 2015. In a May 5, 2025 interview with the New York Times, he didn’t mince words about what he felt was behind the cancellation:
Colbert “was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'”
CBS is one of the most profitable broadcast networks in the United States, through massive advertising revenue, affiliate fees, and sports broadcast rights.
Yet the owners of its parent company, Paramount Global—whose revenue stood at $29.2 billion in 2024—felt they could enrich themselves even more by acquiring Skydance Media.
And if siding with a dictatorial administration to strike a blow at freedom of speech was necessary to make the deal go forward, so be it.
The Ed Sullivan Theater, where Stephen Colbert reigned for 11 years
Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Disney didn’t reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live! out of a steadfast commitment to the First Amendment. It did so only after a massive public backlash led to a widespread boycott of subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu—and a steep drop in Disney’s stock value.
Stephen Colbert had no such reprieve. But he never—at least not in public—lost his poise. He often joked about the upcoming end of his show, endured jokes from his guests about it—and never stopped speaking truth to power at the expense of the Trump administration.
“The only choice you have is how to walk through it,” said his friend and mentor, Jon Stewart, as he and Colbert gazed into a fictitious green wormhole. “You can go in kicking and screaming. Or you can do what you’ve done for the past 30 years when faced with something dark: You stare it down and you can laugh.”
On his last night as host of The Late Show Colbert did exactly that, turning what could have been a mournful event into a celebration of joy and defiance.
Stephen Colbert Signs off “Late Show” with Emotional Goodbye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znec-DIff8o
There had been speculation that Colbert, a devout Catholic, might book Pope Leo XIV for his final show. So Colbert turned it into a gag. He pretended that he was about to bring out the pope for an interview—only to be told the Pontiff was refusing to come out of his dressing room.
“We got him the wrong snacks,” an unidentified voice informed him.
“Who’s going to be my last guest now?” asked Colbert—to be answered by Paul McCartney: “Hey, Stephen, what about me?”
Massive applause resounded as the former Beatle walked onstage.
Stephen Colbert and Paul McCartney
McCartney not only served as Colbert’s last interview guest but as his musical one as well. And McCartney led the band—and the audience—in a rousing number of “Hello, Goodbye,” the Beatles’ 1967 hit:
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Members of the audience—probably including relatives of the show’s cast—swarmed onto the stage to join McCartney, Colbert and the band in what was an act of celebration and defiance: “When faced with something dark, you stare it down and you can laugh.”
Thus Stephen Colbert went gentle—and triumphant—into that good night.
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