Culture CBS is ending ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ next year

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/17/media/cbs-cancels-stephen-colbert

https://archive.ph/UAA9U

https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/17/media/cbs-cancels-stephen-colbert

By Brian Stelter and Dan Heching, CNN
Thu July 17, 2025

In a shocking move, CBS is ending “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next year, potentially exiting the late-night television business altogether.

The cancellation will take effect in May 2026, the normal end of the broadcast TV season, the network said.

The Thursday night announcement came just two weeks after the parent company of CBS, Paramount, settled a lawsuit lodged by President Trump against CBS News.

The settlement – and Paramount’s pending merger with Skydance Media – spurred speculation about Colbert’s future at CBS. Colbert, after all, is one of the staunchest critics of Trump on television.

CBS, however, said in a statement that “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 shared the news at his show taping on Thursday afternoon.

“Next year will be our last season,” Colbert said as audible ‘boos’ were heard in the live studio audience. “The network will be ending our show in May,” he said. “It’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” he added, going on to say, “This is all just going away.”

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

Who knows if another will come after this.

Probably nothing. No one under the age of 60 watches late night broadcast TV or broadcast TV period. CBS/Paramount is probably paying YouTube to push clips from the show to the top of Trending so that'll save them some cash. The whole premise of a talk show with jokes and interviews celebrities, like musical variety shows, is outdated. I hope Colbert tries to stream. Seeing him get less than 500 concurrent viewers without any kind of astroturfing would be hilarious.

 

[Rudolf's Friend]

It's crazy to think that people like Colbert, Neil Degrass Tyson and Bill Nye. were basically Internet royalty in the early 2010s. And now, well... you know...

The Collapse of New Atheism I think was the first domino to fall in their reputations, before then they basically were worshipped as Gods since they constantly mocked Jesus and in the case of Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson constantly boasted that there was no God.

 

[Commander X]

I'm only surprised the axe didn't fall sooner. Colbert was $15+ million a year plus 100+ union laborers in Manhattan in a gigantic theater it probably costs quite a bit on its own to operate. Why should CBS want to continue paying out that much to keep this prissy diva on the air just so two million boomers can forget to turn off their TVs for him.

 

[Blewberry Nausea]

I'm only surprised the axe didn't fall sooner. Colbert was $15+ million a year plus 100+ union laborers in Manhattan in a gigantic theater it probably costs quite a bit on its own to operate. Why should CBS want to continue paying out that much to keep this prissy diva on the air just so two million boomers can forget to turn off their TVs for him.

Um, you’re forgetting the heckin’ streaming numbers on the Paramount+ app Chud! That’s like, 15,000 more views!

 

[Cat tit bingo]

I still remember when he first got the late show gig how absolutely lauded Stephen colbert was, in less then a year all that good will and respect was flushed down the drain. Did trump do irreversible damage to his brain, did comedy central just have better writers, is modern leftist comedy just impossible, is he just a hack? I wonder if there's a world where he just said fuck it no politics, this a celebrity talk show not a news show and he's still respected. Well I guess all talk shows did the trump shit anyway, political or not.
You can take the biden out of the skibidi but you can't take the skibidi out of the corpate hack.

 

[Mr. Racewar1488]

Bill Nye and Neil Degrasse Tyson constantly boasted that there was no God.

Watch Sex Junk and tell me with a straight face that a just and fair God exists.

 

[A Very Big Fish]

Watch Sex Junk and tell me with a straight face that a just and fair God exists.

This seems to me compelling proof of hell and the devil, because clearly that's where the show sourced the script.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Christ, these are shows that used to pull in millions more. They’d be the talk of the next day.

"Water cooler TV" is on the decline save for some big Netflix and HBO hits once in a while. Now everyone lives in fragmented, hyperpersonalized algorithmic media bubbles.

https://screenrant.com/mash-finale-ending-new-york-toilet-flush/

A few minutes after MASH's "Goodbye, Farewell And Amen," many New Yorkers dried their tears before heading straight to the bathroom. In fact, according to UPI, approximately one million people in New York went to the toilet at the same time, as the city's sewers were flooded with 6.7 million gallons of water at once. According to spokesman Peter Barrett from the city's Department of Environmental Protection at the time, the flow rate in the water tunnels leapt by 150 million gallons at around 11:03 pm, exactly three minutes after the finale finished.

 

[whoishomermynameis]

 

[OttoWest]

Another disingenuous asshole who went all-in for the pro-tranny line in spite of being a father to a daughter and fucking knowing better.

The real Colbert died after Strangers with Candy.

 

[Lovely Kin]

I still question who truly found him funny besides HR troons and neolibs. He's just.. not funny at all.

 

[draggs]

I think he should be okay. May be less houses

he got all his money from owning sebben & sebben's multinational corporate empire

 

[Marc]

Debatable.

Despite all that Tonight Show bullshit, I can vouch that, in real life, Leno is a very easy-going and naturally funny auto mechanic who we won’t be hearing much from; because he’s taking care of his sick wife until one of them dies. I met him prior to that, when we happened to be hotel neighbors. For what it’s worth, I found him to be nothing more unpleasant than an older, blue collar guy from the Boston area who refuses to take himself seriously.

 

[Professor G. Raff]

Where will I get grade-A comedy like this? How can he stop before finishing the mission to make DONALD DRUMPF AGAIN?!

 

[majob]

I will admit, I will miss nuggets like "drumph" and "two scoops" but it's for the best

 

[Peaches the Wonder Cat]

Can John Oliver be next, please?

 

[whatever I feel like]

Bye, whore.

 

[Dead Gay Muppet Gangbang]

RIP IN PEPPERONI BOZO LOL

 

[TowinKarz]

I still question who truly found him funny besides HR troons and neolibs. He's just.. not funny at all.

It was mostly neolibs, but, I think you're just underestimating the number of neolibs that existed in this country until post-Obama proved maybe the Right Side of History (tm) wasn't here after all...... and then were shocked at the depths of progressive incompetence and degeneracy that followed that.... before finally being scared straight for good with Biden.

Mid 00's America was all about disdain for the "dying" conservative movement and the imminent arrival of permanent Utopic leftist rule.

A lot of the people who were dedicated watchers of this kind of TV never thought the left would go down the path of the Tranny Nightmare or open borders or abolished police or social media censorship.

Circa 2008? That all seemed like conspiracy-talk from sore loser Republicans.... After all? The cool people watch Colbert, not Rush. Smart people watch the Daily Show........not Fox News. Progressive people know that this talk about how now that gay marriage is okay? Child grooming will be next? Is just the death throes of the Religious Right.... by 2010? We'll be a nation of proper atheists!

The 20 years since?

A slow dawning that their side is fundamentally and irrecoverably degenerate, authoritarian, anti-American and insane.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

I still remember when he first got the late show gig how absolutely lauded Stephen colbert was, in less then a year all that good will and respect was flushed down the drain. Did trump do irreversible damage to his brain, did comedy central just have better writers, is modern leftist comedy just impossible, is he just a hack? I wonder if there's a world where he just said fuck it no politics, this a celebrity talk show not a news show and he's still respected. Well I guess all talk shows did the trump shit anyway, political or not.
You can take the biden out of the skibidi but you can't take the skibidi out of the corpate hack.

Colbert used to be funny (sometimes), but we live in a world that's beyond parody.