Seth Meyers kicked off upfronts week with several scathing jokes pointed at Donald Trump and David Ellison’s CBS during NBCUniversal’s Monday morning presentation.
Closing out NBCUniversal’s upfronts, the “Late Night with Seth Meyers” host opened his monologue with an all-too resonant joke that he might be the next late night host — after his peers Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert — to be targeted by Trump’s FCC.
“Hey, good morning, everybody. I’m Seth Meyers, or as the FCC calls me next,” he said.
“Let me start by being upfront with you. Things could be going better. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of good news: NBC was the number one broadcast television network for the 2025-2026 season,” he continued. “After over a decade, we have taken down CBS. Well, the Ellisons did, but I’d like to think we helped. Seriously, what’s going on over there? They’re so in the pocket for Trump that I heard next year’s ‘Survivor’ is in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Meyers continued by saying CBS did not hold an upfront presentation this year “because it’s CBS up front — just describes how they paid Trump to drop the lawsuit,” referring to Trump’s suit against “60 Minutes,” which was settled for $16 million.
It wasn’t just Paramount and CBS at which the late night host threw some shade; he also spread the love to some of the streamers. “Netflix is hosting its upfronts that appear on the Hudson River because once the Netflix show hits two seasons, that’s where they dump its body,” he quipped.
In true upfronts late night host fashion, NBCUniversal enjoyed some roasting as well, mostly as it relates to the media conglomerate’s financial status.
“Paramount-Skydance did beat out Netflix to buy Warner Brothers. Comcast actually made a bid too, but no one thought we were actually going to get it,” Meyers said. “It was kind of like that one friend who always pretends to reach for its wallet after the check comes: ‘No, no, Comcast, you can get it next time, bud.’ ‘Thanks. I’m a little light after buying the NBA.’”
And later on, Meyers directed those comments at spin-off company Versant: “And if you’re from out of town and you get hassled by someone for money on the subway, don’t panic. That’s just the Versant afterparty.”
That roasting also extending to NBCUniversal’s recent earnings call that saw the company report Peacock is “approaching profitability,” which Meyers likened to “the same way Kevin Hart is approaching seven feet tall.”
