Seth Meyers delivered a sharp attack on CBS at an NBCUniversal upfront event in New York City on Monday morning. While the comedy world was busy roasting Kevin Hart in Los Angeles, the Late Night host was taking aim at the network's recent direction.
Meyers wasted no time. After noting that NBC had secured the top spot for broadcast television in the 2025-2026 season, he declared: "After over a decade, we have taken down CBS." He then credited the real force behind the shift: "Well, the Ellisons did, but I like to think we helped."
The main joke followed. "Seriously, what's going on over there?" Meyers asked. "They're so in the pocket for Trump that I heard next year Survivor is in the Strait of Hormuz."
He continued with another jab at CBS's absent upfront presentation to advertisers: "They didn't do an upfront this year because at CBS 'upfront' just describes how they paid Trump to drop the lawsuit."
The comment has context. Paramount, CBS's parent company, merged with David Ellison's Skydance last year. Before the merger, Trump filed a defamation suit over a 60 Minutes episode. The settlement has been widely speculated, and the timing—along with CBS's shift in editorial direction—fuels the narrative Meyers was exploiting.
As the host of Late Night, Meyers has had a front-row seat to the changes at CBS since the Skydance-Paramount merger. The network's increasingly Trump-friendly positioning has become material for his monologues.
