This is not the news anyone expected. CBS has decided to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. This is not “CBS is canceling Colbert’s contract and hiring a new host.” This is a cancellation of their signature late-night show, an institutional “anchor program” on network television for decades, starting with David Letterman. This is clearly politically motivated too, even though the politics involved are more complicated than most people are willing to admit. Last year, Colbert started going hard anti-Biden, perhaps because he (like many others in TV and media) thought that “a second Trump presidency would be better for ratings.” But Colbert never shied away from criticizing Trump, and in recent weeks, he’s criticized CBS on-air for openly bribing Donald Trump by “settling a lawsuit.” The settlement helped facilitate the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance, and Colbert pointed all of that out on-air. Still, CBS’s bizarre public statement on the Late Show’s cancellation emphasized the “financial reasons” for canceling.
TV’s ongoing problems with late night have come for Stephen Colbert, with CBS announcing Thursday that it plans to end his “Late Show” after the next TV season, citing a “financial decision.”
The decision — which ends years of original late-night programming at CBS that started when the network lured David Letterman from NBC in 1993 — comes as the economics of wee-hours TV have begun to accelerate, with media companies growing wary of the high price tags involved in producing the shows while the young viewers they try to attract watch more of them via digital video.
“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘The Late Show’ franchise” in May of 2026,” CBS executives said in a statement. “We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. 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.”
Colbert, who was informed of the network’s decision Wednesday evening, according to a person familiar with the matter, told the audience at the taping for Thursday’s broadcast about the matter.
There has been growing speculation that both Colbert and Jon Stewart, who hosts one broadcast of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” broadcasts each week, could be under growing scrutiny from executives at Skydance Media, which is slated to acquire Paramount Global, the parent of both CBS and Comedy Central. David Ellison, who leads Skydance, has projected an image of being intrigued by the politics espoused by President Donald Trump, who Colbert and Stewart routinely skewer in monologues and commentary.
Indeed, Senator Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, took to social media Thursday after taping a “Late Show” broadcast and said: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”
Again, this would be the equivalent of NBC canceling the Today Show or the Tonight Show. It’s a network’s “signature programing,” The Late Show IS an institution. Even if they had beef with Colbert specifically and they didn’t want to platform Colbert’s specific and chaotic political views, there were other routes to get Colbert off the air. It’s all so bizarre. THR had a good piece about the “awful optics” and many other people (including Jimmy Kimmel) are freaking out. I’m including Colbert’s on-air announcement last night, as well as one of my favorite Colbert interviews, the one he did with Prince Harry in 2023.
Photos/screengrabs courtesy of CBS.
