Stephen Colbert's 'Late Show' canceled by CBS, ends May 2026
[July 18, 2025]
By ALICIA RANCILIO and ANDREW DALTON
CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” next May,
shuttering a decades-old TV institution in a changing media landscape
and removing from air one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent and
persistent late-night critics.
Thursday's announcement followed Colbert's criticism on Monday of a
settlement between Trump and Paramount Global, parent company of CBS,
over a “60 Minutes” story.
Colbert told his audience at New York's Ed Sullivan Theater that he had
learned Wednesday night that after a decade on air, “next year will be
our last season. ... It's the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not
being replaced. This is all just going away.”
The audience responded with boos and groans.
“Yeah, I share your feelings," the 61-year-old comic said.
Three top Paramount and CBS executives praised Colbert's show as “a
staple of the nation's zeitgeist” in a statement that said the
cancellation “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.”
In his Monday monologue, Colbert said he was "offended" by the $16
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.”
Trump had sued Paramount Global over how “60 Minutes” edited its
interview last fall with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala
Harris. Critics say the company settled primarily to clear a hurdle to
the Skydance sale.
Colbert took over “The Late Show” in 2015 after becoming a big name in
comedy and news satire working with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show" and
hosting “The Colbert Report," which riffed on right-wing talk shows.
The most recent ratings from Nielsen show Colbert gaining viewers so far
this year and winning his timeslot among broadcasters, with about 2.417
million viewers across 41 new episodes. On Tuesday, Colbert’s “Late
Show” landed its sixth nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for
outstanding talk show. It won a Peabody Award in 2021.
David Letterman began hosting “The Late Show" in 1993. When Colbert took
over, he deepened its engagement with politics. Alongside musicians and
movie stars, Colbert often welcomes politicians to his couch.
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California was a guest on Thursday night.
Schiff said on X that “if Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for
political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts released a similar
statement.
[to top of second column]
|
Stephen Colbert arrives at a screening of "The Late Show with
Stephen Colbert," during PaleyFest, April 21, 2024, at the Dolby
Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP,
File)
 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.
“They’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. Won’t work.
We will just get louder," said Curtis, who has previously criticized
Trump and is set to visit Colbert's show in 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.
“Gov. 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.”
Late-night TV has been facing economic pressures for years; ratings
and ad revenue are down and many young viewers prefer highlights
online, which networks have trouble monetizing. CBS also recently
canceled host Taylor Tomlinson's “After Midnight,” which aired after
“The Late Show.”
Still, Colbert had led the network late-night competition for years.
And while NBC has acknowledged economic pressures by eliminating the
band on Seth Meyers’ show and cutting one night of Jimmy Fallon’s
“The Tonight Show," there had been no such visible efforts at “The
Late Show."
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.”
___
AP Media Writer David Bauder in New York and AP Entertainment
reporter Liam McEwan in Los Angeles contributed.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
