TBS has canceled the late night program “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” after seven seasons, which is the sort of indignity the show once specialized in lampooning.
“As we continue to shape our new programming strategy, we’ve made some difficult, business-based decisions,” TBS said in a statement. “We are proud to have been the home to ‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’ and thank Sam, and the rest of the Emmy-nominated team for their groundbreaking work. We celebrate this extraordinarily talented cast and crew and look forward to exploring new opportunities to work with them in the future.”
This move is both rather surprising, but also part of a larger trend at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which has been taking aggressive cost cutting actions of late...and angering a lot of TV fans in the process.
‘Full Frontal With Samantha Bee’ Represented A Late Night Sea Change
“The Daily Show” has proved to be one of the most fertile training grounds for comedic talent of the 21st century, and when host Jon Stewart departed in 2015, the former correspondent Samantha Bee was seen as a strong candidate to take over the late night institution.
Bee has said in interviews she wasn’t approached about the job, though. Instead she moved from Comedy Central to host her own show for TBS in 2016, bringing a fresh new voice to late night television.
Late night television in general has grown more overly political in recent years, largely due to the influence of “The Daily Show,” and the growing demand that public figures take a stand on certain issues. (It’s often joked that Seth Meyers late night show resembles a left-wing YouTube channel.)
But in this outspoken milieu, in which even Jimmy Fallon feels the need to occasionally criticize former President Donald Trump, Bee went above and beyond, famously getting into hot water for a segment in which she referred to Ivanka Trump as a word which weren’t not going to repeat.
It’s rare for women to have their own late night talk shows, and when they do (such as has been the case for Wanda Sykes and Joan Rivers) they tend to not last long or get properly recognized.
But as a more topical companion piece to “Conan,” “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” became one of the most recognizable shows on TBS, earning critical acclaim and winning an Emmy in 2017 for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. It also regularly had clips that went viral, such as recent impassioned dissection on the overturning of Roe v Wade Bee made while she was sick with covid.
Why Did 'Full Frontal' Get Canceled?
The popularity and relevance of “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” did not appear to be waning, as the show had just received its 19th Emmy nomination. And in a cultural climate that, as the writer Susan Faludi noted in the New York Times, is currently in the midst of a feminist backlash and a regression of women’s liberties, Bee’s voice is arguably more needed than ever.
But things like cultural relevance, awards and good taste often fall by wayside when there’s a greater corporate initiative at play.
After the $43 billion merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery was finalized this spring (resulting in the newly named company Warner Bros. Discovery) new CEO David Zaslav said he would be looking to find $3 billion in cost savings. According to Deadline, the cost cutting measures could mean “30% fewer employees in sales, an expected move reflecting overlap related to the business combination.”
His first move was to shut down the new streaming service CNN+ less than a month after it launched. But Zaslav didn't stop there.
The Warner Bros Discovery umbrella includes channels ranging from TLC, Cartoon Network, TNT, Animal Planet and TBS, to name just a few, as well as half of The CW. It would appear that Zaslav is taking a close look at all of the properties.
TBS had been producing more original content such as “Full Frontal” and the recently concluded Tracy Morgan vehicle “The Last O.G.,” but it’s very quickly becoming a channel for syndicated television, baseball games and all-day marathons of “A Christmas Story.”
Likewise, the CW has recently been canceling shows left and right, much to the confusion of fans of the superhero shows “Batwoman” and “Legends of Tomorrow.”
There's no clear sense of when the cutting will stop, but fans of all but the biggest shows in the Warner Bros Discovery portfolio might want to have their outraged #saveourshow protest hashtags ready to go.
