Stephen Colbert barely finished his conviction erstwhile he announced Thursday that "The Late Show" was disappearing from the air. The audience was buzzing, his wife was rubbing tears, and the host himself looked as if he was reporting with disbelief. It is hard to be amazed – as Deadline writes, Colbert found out about the CBS decision only on Wednesday.
The station announced that Colbert would run the program by May 2026. Later, not only "The Late Show" will disappear, but the full late evening band – CBS withdraws from it entirely. It's the first specified decision in American tv history. At the same time, as Variety notes, this could mean the beginning of the full species.
Ending the broadcast of the most popular late-night program in the US is simply a immense shock. And as any commentators say, it's not just about money.
Stephen Colbert's program "The Late Night" fades off the air even though he won with competition
Colbert, who for 9 years held a leadership position in his band, according to Nielsen's data, had an average of 2.42 million viewers in the second 4th of this year – more than Jimmy Kimmel (1.77 million) and definitely more than Jimmy Fallon (1.19 million).
However, as Deadline emphasizes, the program was deficit for the station, and CBS has been signalling for months that production costs gotta fall. They tried to negociate cuts with Colbert, but seemingly that wasn't enough.
The problem concerns the full industry. NBC has already reduced "The Tonight Show" from 5 to 4 episodes a week, "Late Night" saves on the music band and shoots 2 shows 1 day. CBS has besides deleted "After Midnight", and another networks – from TBS to Apple TV+ – are getting free of further satirical-publicist programs.
As 1 of the erstwhile CBS station chiefs summed up in a conversation with Deadline: "This is the end of a certain era".
Is it just about money? The deletion of "The Late Night" has a lot to do with Donald Trump
CBS's authoritative message refers to "business decision". But many observers don't believe that's the full truth. Colbert has been increasingly critical of his parent company for months, Paramount Global – especially after the company made a deal with Donald Trump in 1 of the court cases. Colbert called it "a large bribe." Besides, he regularly criticized the Republican president.
You didn't gotta wait long for Trump's reaction. "I love that Colbert has been fired. [Jimmy] Kimmel is next," wrote Trump on fact Social, adding that Jimmy Fallon is "an idiot". Coincidence?
Democratic organization Senators, including Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren, are already demanding answers. “If the CBS ended The Late Show for political reasons, public opinion deserves an explanation,” said Schiff.
– I don't know what would be worse – that it's just about money, which would mean the end of the full format faster than we thought, whether it's about the Trump force and Paramount merger – said anonymously 1 of the producers of the late-night.
The end of the tv era
As Variety writes, the CBS decision is the symbolic death of a certain model of conversation – the 1 held in the evening, together, live, with a light humour and a sharp comment. It was a form that connected, not shared. Today, in the era of personalized content and TikTok, there is no request to share watching anything – everyone lives in their bubble.
"The Late Show" tried to be more than just a set of viral gags – especially since Trump's presidency. Colbert built his brand on a liberal, committed tone. He frequently broadcast live after crucial political events to comment on them in real time. He introduced elements of publicism to entertainment. And that's why this program – although present not matching algorithm logic – was so important.
– This is the end of the tv comedy pillar," commented CBS head of the National Comedy Center Journey Gunderson. “This program shaped our national conversation,” she added.
In a planet where Trump rules, the media undergo mass cuts, and mass culture decays into thousands of separate messages, something like "The Late Show" truly can be unplayable. It wasn't a program designed for these times. But the question we're staying with is, is there anything else for these times?
