Los Angeles: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the most-watched late-night program 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.
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.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled.Credit: CBS via Getty Images
“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,” the executives said in a statement.
CBS parent company Paramount is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $US8.4 billion ($12.5 billion) merger with Skydance Media. This month, Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with former vice president Kamala Harris, his Democratic challenger in the 2024 presidential race, 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.