NYC Makes & Late Night Takes

I remember it well: in early 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton took office as President, David Letterman dramatically announced his departure from NBC and his 12:30 AM show Late Night to go host the 11:30 PM Late Show on CBS.

America waited with baited breath: would the quintessential NYC late night host pull up stakes and move his new show in a better time slot on another network to LA?

In the end, Dave stayed put, moving into the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway and making NYC a late night powerhouse for the first time since the 1960s -- and for the next 32 years. 

Part of the reason he stayed is that then-NYC Mayor David Dinkins moved heaven and earth to keep the Letterman show here. And when Letterman retired in 2015, CBS was bribed to keep his replacement Stephen Colbert in NYC with generous tax breaks. The same thing had happened in 2014 to move the Tonight Show back to NYC. 

We, the taxpayers of NYC, basically financed late night TV. 

And now ... the show has been cancelled, late night TV is in freefall -- and got stuck with the bill! All of that revenue that might have come into NYC without these tax breaks are gone -- and can never be recovered.

So when we hear scary stuff about "socialism" just remember -- we already have socialism but it's for the rich and big corporations ... and not for the rest of us.