CBS cancels Stephen Colbert's late-night show, calling decision financial

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the most-watched late-night programme 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 (Jul 17).

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.

"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," CBS executives said in the statement.

Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for a US$8.4 billion (S$10.8 billion) merger with Skydance Media.

This month, Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with his former Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, that CBS's 60 Minutes broadcast in October.

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 on Thursday's episode.

"If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better," Schiff wrote on X.

Colbert often skewered Trump in his nightly monologue and criticised Paramount's settlement with the president. The comedian called the company's payment to Trump a "big fat bribe" on his show on Monday.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, posted a clip of that comment on X and echoed Schiff's remark that "America deserves to know" if the show was cancelled because of Colbert's politics.

Late-night shows have seen their audiences shrink as viewers have shifted from traditional television to streaming.

The Late Show drew an average of 2.5 million viewers during the 2024 to 2025 season that ended in June, ahead of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

"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-CEO and CBS CEO 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.