Television

"We could have had the next Game of Thrones doing 200 episodes a year at 11:30pm every weeknight and made approximately a million billion gajillion dollars - anything less is a loss."

CBS's tax accounting team, probably.

https://www.natesilver.net/p/why-colbert-got-canceled

Still, The Late Show has long carried a headcount of more than 200 employees. Many of them are likely quite long-tenured, protected by unions or by office politics. My experience with ABC News suggests that most of them are dedicated and highly skilled professionals, but some are also coasting, and the pay scale might not have much to do with their contribution to the bottom line. It’s not hard to imagine that they’re making an average of something like $250K per year per person, counting benefit packages, which are often generous at the big media brands.

Take 200 x $250K … that’s $50 million. On top of that, Colbert was reportedly making between $15 and $20 million a year. If Paramount was then allocating some costs to the Late Show for a dedicated studio on a prime block in Midtown, equipment for a show with a pristine production values, plus travel and accommodation for guests — considerably nicer, in my experience, than for your typical late-afternoon TV hit — you could easily approach the nine figures.

Other people on the show earn a salary as well, they might pay guests a participation fee, and there's also opportunity cost to consider if an alternative show has a potential to generate higher (ad-)revenue.

Still sounds unlikely.