John Oliver doesn't seem to have a problem with HBO/Max
Colbert seems to struggle more with the FCC regulations on what he can't say and show more than what CBS wants. It's less often now but at the start of his Late Show he really appeared to be mean to CBS on-air specifically to prove that they didn't have a presence in his writers room.
My guess is that it has more to do with viewership and Emmy wins. His show was frequently telling people that AT&T has terrible service. I can’t imagine AT&T would’ve let that fly if he wasn’t driving viewers and signups.
The past wins are kind of irrelevant. My point is that viewership and wins for his new show might not be strong enough for him to push back hard.
Not trying to victim blame the guy, just saying that he’s been in stronger positions with past shows. The Daily Show was raking in emmys and was the primary reason many people tuned into Comedy Central. It was probably really easy for him to pushback on network notes back then. He had the ability to seriously hurt viewership if he bailed CC.
And business daddy appreciates that it's good business. As soon as you threaten business daddy's business interest it's game over. Luckily HBO's motives are more aligned with journalism than Apple's. Apple is literally the Orwellian nightmare they mocked in ads 40 years ago.
He's been shitting on his employer pretty much since the beginning. It just seems like he went for the fuck around and find out method and I am willing to bet that him and his staff are quite surprised he hasn't found out after all these years.
He likely more power back in the day. He drove a LOT of viewership at Comedy Central. They needed him more than he needed them. That probably not the case for his Apple show. That’s Ted Lasso, Severance, or Foundation.
Netflix is a bad example, but Amazon and Disney do a lot of business with China. Amazon has e-commerce and web services offerings in china. Also they, like Apple, manufacture a LOT of shit there. Disney is simpler. They want to sell their media in China.
Google has been trying to get a foothold in China for a couple of decades. The government there don't want Google, and Google has previously jumped through hoops to make apps and services just for that market to try to placate them. It wasn't successful before but they keep trying. I don't think Google would think twice about axing a YouTube channel if they were aware the content was anti-CCP and has a big enough audience.
"The show's cancellation is indicative of the kinds of challenges owners of platforms (like Apple, Amazon, Google, and others) face when they are producing content, too."
I always remember, when I see Martin Scorsese throw shade at Disney in an interview, that when he made Kundun, the CCP didn't like it and made Disney restrict distribution of the film. Michael Eisner literally hired Henry Kissinger to do damage control afterwards.