Stephen Colbert delivers devastating update on future of The Late Show
Los Angeles: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the most-watched late-night program on US broadcast television and a frequent platform of satire aimed at President Donald Trump, will end its 10-year run on CBS in May 2026, the network said on Thursday.
The show will be retired, and Colbert will not be replaced. New episodes will air until the end of the broadcast TV season in May 2026, a network statement said.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled.Credit: CBS via Getty Images
“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” the executives said in a statement.
CBS parent company Paramount is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $US8.4 billion ($12.5 billion) merger with Skydance Media. This month, Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former vice president Kamala Harris, his Democratic challenger in the 2024 presidential race, that CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast in October.
In his Monday monologue, Colbert said he was “offended” by the $US16 million settlement reached by Paramount, whose pending sale to Skydance Media needs the Trump administration’s approval. He said the technical name in legal circles for the deal was “big fat bribe”.
“I don’t know if anything – anything – will repair my trust in this company,” Colbert said. “But, just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.”
Colbert told his audience on Thursday that he was informed of his show’s cancellation the night before. The audience booed, and Colbert responded: “Yeah, I share your feelings.”
“I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” the 61-year-old comedian said.
The Late Show debuted in 1993 with David Letterman as host after he was passed over for NBC’s The Tonight Show. Colbert, a regular on The Daily Show before he hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, took over The Late Show in 2015.
“It is a fantastic job,” Colbert said on Thursday. “I wish somebody else was getting it, and it’s a job that I’m looking forward to doing with this usual gang of idiots for another 10 months.”
He thanked executives at CBS, his show’s audience and the 200 people who work on the show.
Senator Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat, was a guest during Thursday’s show.
“If Paramount and CBS ended The Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” Schiff wrote on X.
Colbert’s counterpart on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel, posted on Instagram “Love you Stephen” and directed an expletive at CBS.
Actor and producer Jamie Lee Curtis noted in an interview in Los Angeles that the cancellation came as the House passed a bill approving Trump’s request to cut funding to public broadcasters NPR and PBS.
The Ed Sullivan Theatre on Broadway has hosted various versions of The Late Show since it began in 1993. Credit: iStock
“They’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. Won’t work. We will just get louder,” said Curtis, who has previously criticised Trump and is set to visit Colbert’s show in the coming days.
Colbert has long targeted Trump. The guests on his very first show in September 2015 were actor George Clooney and Jeb Bush, who was then struggling in his Republican presidential primary campaign against Trump.
“Governor Bush was the governor of Florida for eight years,” Colbert told his audience. “And you would think that that much exposure to oranges and crazy people would have prepared him for Donald Trump. Evidently not.”
Colbert’s relentless criticism of Trump, his denunciation of the settlement, and the parent company’s pending sale can’t be ignored, said Bill Carter, author of The Late Shift.
“If CBS thinks people are just going to swallow this, they’re really deluded,” Carter said.
Andy Cohen, who began his career at CBS and now hosts Watch What Happens Live, said in an interview: “It is a very sad day for CBS that they are getting out of the late-night race. I mean, they are turning off the lights after the news.”
Late-night shows have seen their audiences shrink as viewers have shifted from traditional television to streaming.
“Our admiration, affection and respect for the talents of Stephen Colbert and his incredible team made this agonising decision even more difficult,” said the statement from Paramount co-chief executive and CBS chief executive George Cheeks, CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach and CBS Studios president David Stapf.
CBS cancelled another late-night show, After Midnight, in March. That show had run immediately after The Late Show.
During the second quarter of 2025, the most-watched late-night program was Gutfeld! on Fox News Channel, with an average audience of 3 million, according to Nielsen data. The Late Show drew about 1.9 million viewers, ahead of 1.5 million for ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show hosted by Jimmy Fallon with 1.1 million.
Reuters
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