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.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Can John Oliver be next, please?

John Oliver is easily the worst of the unfunny "funny" men.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

John Oliver is easily the worst of the unfunny "funny" men.

*stares at you open-mouthed while hitting desk incessantly*

 

[Shroom King]

I hope Stephen Colbert gets punched in the teabag on his way out. Fuck that nigger loving turdboy.

 

[tehpope]

As an aside, the 1960s Tonight Show with Carson, which was shot in New York City, is gone. It's true lost media in that the episodes were wiped and destroyed. Oh, but SKIBBIDI BIDEN is archived, though, so yes, that's fair. sure.

There's some 1960s episodes around. Mostly in trading circles. But Johnny Carson's estate only really show material from the 1970s onwards on their Johnny Carson syndication package.

So yes, you're right.

 

[TowinKarz]

While there is no evidence that Colbert’s cancellation is connected to the settlement, Democratic senators like Elizabeth Warren are asking questions about the possibility.

“America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,” Warren said in a statement Thursday night.

The side that openly censors your social media and interferes in your bank account if you try and buy the "wrong" media with it is concerned that a money-losing legacy TV program nobody watched was actually ended for nefarious political reasons......

 

[User names must be unique]

The side that openly censors you social media is concerned that a money-losing legacy TV program nobody watched was ended for nefarious political reasons......

A bunch of "seize the means of production" faggots thinks being employed by a multi-billion dollar corporation on a multi-million dollar contract and being backed by dozens of writers and production staff is the only way to get a message out.

All while they actively vilify people that have made themselves far more influential with nothing but a webcam and an attic filled with garbage.


If You truly "stand with Colbert against CBS" tell him to break his contract now and leave early, start up some kinda streaming/youtube bullshit.

 

[LeChampion1992]

Colbert’s on the Epstein list, calling it now (pretty sure I read a conspiracy before that he was a nonce)

I think he was legit in epsteins black book along either Hillary and Bill Clinton with Trump.

Fallon belongs on HGTV, saying things like, "I'm super stoked to finally get to renovate an old-fashioned billiards room."

I really feel like deep down Jimmy Fallon wants to leave the Hollywood scene do some show in middle America or the Midwest and Do HGTV.

The late night talk show was once a keystone of American pop culture, it's decline is not due just to "social media" , the loss of late night TV as a medium is in and of itself not a big deal but as US society becomes increasingly atomized, there has been a loss of shared cultural norms that make various experiences, like those shows like the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson possible, to where they'd pull in like, 15 million or so viewers a night at the show's peak.

Late night talk TV has been dead for a while. Letterman and Leno were the last real ones, when they retired it was basically over. Jimmy Fallon is not a real person. Jimmy Fallon is a homunculus that was created in an evil alchemist's laboratory.
View attachment 7663648

As an aside, the 1960s Tonight Show with Carson, which was shot in New York City, is gone. It's true lost media in that the episodes were wiped and destroyed. Oh, but SKIBBIDI BIDEN is archived, though, so yes, that's fair. sure.

I think people have to understand the comedy world changed. The shows you had on at this time like the late show with David Letterman which was before the Ed Sullivan show.
Or even the Dick Caveat show which was more serious and political at times were still meant to be a relief.
That world is gone and people who only remember scraps of it ie boomers are failing to live up to the world.

 

[grump]

Does anyone still watch the late night shows? Genuinely asking. Not surprised he got axed, since his show is full of unwatchable woke bullshit.

boomers and genxers who never figured out which way to insert the usb drive and thus don't know how to watch anything but network tv and maybe a few millennial hipsters.

Like most things these days, especially political ragebait. Its amplified mostly through secondary media with bits and pieces and secondhand often biased summaries of Colbert 'owning Trump' reposted on Reddit and Youtube and schlock news sites.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Trump had the last laugh now, considering that the merger between Paramount and Skydance required FCC approval from the Trump administration.

 

[MirrorNoir]

I thought Colbert was a devout Catholic?

Colbert is Catholic but spent the early part of his career pretending to be Jewish ala Jason Biggs. But unlike Jason Biggs, who's career died a sudden and total death when he came clean to Woody Allen that he was Italian/Catholic and simply never corrected anyone that thought he was Jewish (which led to Woody getting Biggs blackballed in Hollywood via the Jewish whisper network), Colbert managed to get the Sedaris family and John Stewart to give him protection for pretending to be Jewish to further his career.

 

[MirrorNoir]

Yes but this is how you get rogue agents, entertainment sphere Noriega types, who used to be assets and know too much/have too big a cult of personality. I think they tried this but it's how you end up with people like Sam Hyde and Trevor Moore who need to be 'controlled and contained.'



Yes the zeitgeist and the media were aligned at the time and it was genuinely enjoyable. The second Obama was elected they started building a brick wall around the circus tent. They also clearly planned this all along, Blue Zionists recapturing the human run-off from Red Zionist actions.

... Which brings us to the topic of Bill Maher...



The ultimate survivor and king piper of the Neo-Lib Zionist wing of the Democrat party. The dude literally exists to catch coastal, Gen-X, college educated men trying to escape to the DMZ. He spends 2 years talking sense while quietly platforming MSNBC talking heads and taking ideological bullets on air from DNC politicians for the horking base.... then he rallies around whatever candidate the Super Delegates select and brow beats the audience until election day.

There is even an episode where the monologue is about how because of the Comcast NBC buy up it will be the last 'Real Episode of Real Time.' He outright tells you that he cannot be trusted but I don't know if that negates the lies to come.

I only know all this because I used to think he was really funny and the more you watch the more you notice when the mask slips. I think it was a slow boil for him but he won't give up the grift.



Kimmel knows that if he doesn't kiss the ring the spinsters will never let him work again. See Corolla (though I wish him the best with his podcast endeavors).

Maher is different from the Daily Show clique (Stewart, Colbert, and Oliver) in that he's open and honest in the fact that, at the end of the day, he just wants to go fucking back to the 1990s when liberals were in charge and arbiters of cool and conservatives were square fundies losers.

I've repeatedly stated this: Bill is a slightly more self aware version of Malcolm McDowell from Star Trek The Generations. He wants to go back into the Nexus, where it is 1996-1997 on eternal loop and will genocide as many populated planets as necessary to get back inside said Nexus. Maher wants to go back in time, while the Daily Show gang but especially Colbert and Oliver, want that Thousand Year SJW Reich and want it NOW.

 

[IrishGuy088]

The late night talk show was once a keystone of American pop culture, it's decline is not due just to "social media" , the loss of late night TV as a medium is in and of itself not a big deal but as US society becomes increasingly atomized, there has been a loss of shared cultural norms that make various experiences, like those shows like the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson possible, to where they'd pull in like, 15 million or so viewers a night at the show's peak.

Late night talk TV has been dead for a while. Letterman and Leno were the last real ones, when they retired it was basically over. Jimmy Fallon is not a real person. Jimmy Fallon is a homunculus that was created in an evil alchemist's laboratory.
View attachment 7663648

As an aside, the 1960s Tonight Show with Carson, which was shot in New York City, is gone. It's true lost media in that the episodes were wiped and destroyed. Oh, but SKIBBIDI BIDEN is archived, though, so yes, that's fair. sure.

You have made a very good post, but I would like to add something to it.

Part of the biggest issue with modern late night television (and I use the term "modern" to include most of the last 30 years is late night) is that everything the came after Johnny Carson simply and unabashedly imitated Johnny Carson and never really changed the formula or brought anything new to the table. While there have been good hosts since Carson, the "genre" of late night variety shows has largely remained stagnant and the sort of failure we are seeing nowadays was inevitable. The current crop of hosts are very hard to relate to or get along with, to the point of several of them coming off as snobby jerks or simply mean, angry people. And then you have Fallon who isn't as angry as the others but his show is so sanitized and generic that it makes the waiting room at a doctor's office seem fun.

There was one exception to this however and that was the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Yes, he still used the same foundation as the other late night shows but his interview style, the types of routines they produced and the overall demeanor of the show were entirely unique and extremely entertaining. Ferguson was able to create extremely compelling guest interviews (that sometimes flopped) because he would ask his guests real questions and talk to them like he would talk to any one of his friends or you if you met him at a diner. It was very informal and worked to the show's benefit because he could get answers nobody else could about subjects nobody else could bring up.

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson was possibly the only true successor to Carson's Tonight Show formula because it iterated upon the idea and added much-needed life to a very stagnant genre of television. Conan O'Brien also had some of this freshness about him, especially in the early years. And the fact the both of them left the scene without someone else picking up and continuing their momentum speaks volumes about why Colbert's show found itself on the chopping block.

Take some time and watch this whole episode or at least the interview with Larry King which begins at about 20 minutes in. This is some good television and worth your 45 minutes. It still makes me laugh every time and I've seen it half a dozen times now.

Moving back to the subject at hand though, you may not like Colbert, but he is a talented guy; and during the very early months of his show (which I watched) he was doing some really weird and abstract things (think Strangers with Candy) with the late night format. Unfortunately he gave up on a lot of that after the first year or so, likely due to meddling from the network and once the anti-Trump grift became a sustainable model, Colbert completely gave up on any attempts at making a unique show. It is extremely disappointing and I can't say I feel too bad for Colbert now that his fortunes have changed. He's just a jerk and a hypocrite and it is sad. Don't even get me started on Jimmy Kimmel... sheesh!

 

[Hurst]

the fact of the matter is that nobody cares about late night tv anymore.

Its not that people dont care about late night tv its they don't care about the modern personalities that are involved with it.

Almost nobody in the mainstream is likable anymore. It's not like 20 years ago, when we still had semi likable celebrities and personalities. You actually wanted to hear what they have to say.

Now, all thats left are really self-absorbed, holier than thou celebrities and personalities that only the most retarded people would want to watch. That's why Late Shows are failing.

 

[MirrorNoir]

I'm shocked no one has mentioned Adult Swim yet for why Late Night is dying. Granted it's reruns of old Fox shows and AS reruns many of which are a decade plus old, but it created a legit alternative to late night talk shows for that time of night viewing for a lot of people.

 

[LeChampion1992]

The problem of that era was a lot of people, including that grandpa wanted you to go die for Israel and honestly, we are going back to those days, as guess who's Trump's running buddy now

View attachment 7662431

That crotcichity old grandpa died over a decade ago if not 2 in some cases. While I get boomers are the grandpa's and grandmas now this is the generation that can't seem to take time from I dunno their busy days whining about lazy millenials and upset that they can't charge slavewages anymore like they could in the 1990s. These are the grandparents who are we gotta support Israel or stop Trump to save our queer grandkids.
When talking about racist grandparents the ww2 generation vs the baby boomers are night and day. The boomers will barely mutter the N word and are more upset that their kid decided to love another sports ball team than that their kid was murdered by urban youth.

 

[The Reddest Red 0ne]

I can’t believe that show was on the air as long as it was. Truly a relic from a different cultural era; not at all surprised they canceled it. I was never a giant Colbert fan, Stewart was always funnier. He’s rich AF so he’ll be fine regardless. Time for him to move on.

 

[gay porn is the best porn]

John Oliver is easily the worst of the unfunny "funny" men.

Last week tonight is complete and total unmitgated ass and John Oliver is a retarded faggot. Basically every politically charged "late night comedy" show is unfunny as fuck and the entire genre needs to die off already. I don't think they're ever gonna be capable of making a comeback when they've been stuck on orange man bad since 2015

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Last week tonight is complete and total unmitgated ass and John Oliver is a retarded faggot. Basically every politically charged "late night comedy" show is unfunny as fuck and the entire genre needs to die off already. I don't think they're ever gonna be capable of making a comeback when they've been stuck on orange man bad since 2015

John Oliver has a dedicated audience... of about 300,000, down from maybe 1.6 million at peak. He was already clobbered in 2021, and hit by the writers' strike in 2023. Those ratings don't count YouTube though.

 

[Big moth tiddies]

We'd try a different show the next night, still not laugh, and ask each other how/why this shit was still on the air.

The answer is that the guest or product being plugged paid for it in some way. If there's an interview, it's because they're shilling a book or a product. This works until they realize people are no longer watching, or that the only places tuned in are tv's in the airports.

Fallon belongs on HGTV, saying things like, "I'm super stoked to finally get to renovate an old-fashioned billiards room."

Fallon belongs in a grave too shallow for the family dog.

 

[Gandhi's Left Hook]

going on to say, “This is all just going away.”

Oh well, don't let the door hit your pussy on the way out.