Media and entertainment elites aren’t so different from the rest of us, but don’t tell them that. This rarefied bunch includes “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who just got a lesson in being laid off. The left isn’t taking it well.

As anyone who has worked knows, the marketplace changes; what people buy or watch one year may fall out of favor or lose out to competitors. It happened to Colbert, who announced his show’s cancellation on July 17.

“This is all just going away,” the comedian told his audience. “Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending ‘The Late Show.’ ”

“The Late Show” has been around since Dave Letterman first sat behind the host desk in 1993. A lot has changed since then: technology, competition and viewership especially. In a landscape where a coveted younger audience turns to TikTok and YouTube for clips, the late-night talk show format is aging like milk.

Irrelevant, say Colbert defenders.

“They just cut NPR and, you know, public broadcasting. Yes, they’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. It won’t work. We will just get louder,” actress Jamie Lee Curtis told the Associated Press.

“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted on X.

“The fact that CBS didn’t try to save their No. 1 rated late-night franchise that’s been on the air for over three decades is part of what’s making everybody wonder … was this purely financial or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger?” Jon Stewart said on his Comedy Central program.

Unfortunately for the wailing set, the bottom line is the bottom line. As The New York Post reported, though the “Late Show” was regularly No. 1 in its timeslot among network television, the show lost $40 million a year in revenue. Late-night viewership isn’t what it was.

Guideline, an ad data firm, estimates that the networks’ late-night shows earned $439 million in ad revenue in 2018 and only $220 million in 2024 — a drop of 50%.

As CNN reported, late-night shows hosted by Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel are expensive to produce, with hundreds of staffers and elaborate studio productions.

They’re also not a good fit for streaming since they tend to be topical, limiting their shelf life. And while Colbert’s commentaries and interviews often go viral on social media, that’s not easily converted into money, since CBS doesn’t control the social platforms. It’s a lesson every late-night host should take to heart.

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” Paramount and CBS executives said.

In any other industry, financial hemorrhaging would have led to layoffs and cost cuts long ago. But hosts of late night TV shows are special, according to the pushback. CBS should have eagerly “saved” the show and happily continued to lose revenue and viewers.

Colbert’s salary was in the millions, he’ll be OK. Fallon, Kimmel and Stewart are likely a bit nervous as the lesson settles in: media and entertainment elite are not as untouchable as they thought.

Editorial cartoon by Gary Varvel (Creators Syndicate)