{"id":2526,"date":"2025-07-18T07:25:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/2526\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T07:25:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:25:12","slug":"the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-cancelled-by-cbs-will-wrap-up-in-may-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/2526\/","title":{"rendered":"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert cancelled by CBS, will wrap up in May 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

US television network CBS has announced The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will end after the upcoming broadcast season.<\/p>\n

The show will air until May 2026 and Colbert will not be replaced as host after it wraps up, bringing an end to a late-night franchise that has occupied New York’s historic Ed Sullivan Theatre since the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

CBS executives released a statement calling the move a “purely financial decision”, labelling Colbert “irreplaceable”.<\/p>\n

“[The decision is made] against a challenging backdrop in late night,” the statement read.<\/p>\n

“It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”<\/p>\n

US media is reporting that CBS’s parent company, Paramount, is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for a merger with Skydance Media<\/a>, in a deal worth $US8.4 billion ($12.9 billion).<\/p>\n

Paramount to pay Trump $24m over Harris interview lawsuit<\/a><\/p>\n

Media group Paramount will pay Donald Trump more than $24 million to settle a lawsuit filed over an interview with former US presidential rival Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Paramount also agreed this month to settle a lawsuit filed by US President Donald Trump over an interview with his Democratic challenger in the 2024 presidential race \u2014 former vice-president Kamala Harris \u2014 that CBS’s 60 Minutes program broadcast in October.<\/p>\n

Critics, including Colbert \u2014 who often condemns the president’s actions on his show \u2014 say the company settled primarily to clear a hurdle to the Skydance sale.<\/p>\n

In a scathing monologue delivered on Monday, local time, Colbert said he was “offended” by the settlement and joked that the technical name in legal circles for the deal was a “big fat bribe”.<\/p>\n

The late-night host told his audience of the cancellation on Thursday, expressing his disappointment in the decision while praising his staff.<\/p>\n

“Let me tell you, it is a fantastic job. I wish somebody else was getting it,” Colbert said.<\/p>\n

“And it’s a job that I’m looking forward to doing with this usual gang of idiots for another 10 months.”<\/p>\n

\"Barack<\/p>\n

David Letterman, right, with President Barack Obama on The Late Show in 2015. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)<\/p>\n

Colbert took over as host of The Late Show in September 2015, succeeding veteran broadcaster David Letterman, who launched the program in 1993 after Jay Leno was named host of NBC’s flagship Tonight Show.<\/p>\n

He previously hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, where he appeared in character as a Fox News-style opinion host, satirising right-wing media.<\/p>\n

Questions surround politics of CBS move<\/p>\n

California Democratic senator Adam Schiff taped a segment for the show and took to X, suggesting the show’s cancellation may be due to political reasons.<\/p>\n

“If Paramount and CBS ended The Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Colbert’s counterpart on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel, posted on Instagram “Love you Stephen” and directed an expletive at CBS.<\/p>\n

Trump’s $9b public spending cuts approved by US House<\/a><\/p>\n

The United States House of Representatives has approved the Trump administration’s $US9 billion in cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid programs.<\/p>\n

Actor and producer Jamie Lee Curtis also noted in an interview in Los Angeles that the cancellation came as the House of Representatives passed a bill approving Mr Trump’s request to cut funding to public broadcasters NPR and PBS.<\/p>\n

“They’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. Won’t work. We will just get louder,” said Curtis, who was set to visit Colbert’s show in coming days.<\/p>\n

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 monetising<\/p>\n

But while rival network NBC has acknowledged economic pressures by eliminating the band on Seth Meyers’s Late Night and cutting one night of Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, there had been no such visible efforts at The Late Show, which has led the late-night competition for years.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Stephen Colbert’s Late Show has been a hit with critics, receiving dozens of Emmy nominations. (Reuters: Mario Anzuoni)<\/p>\n

The most recent ratings from Nielsen show Colbert as winning his time slot, with about 2.417 million viewers across 41 new episodes.<\/p>\n

Nielsen also reported Colbert’s late-night show was the only one to gain viewers so far this year.<\/p>\n

The Late Show was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award<\/a> for Outstanding Talk Show this week for the sixth time.<\/p>\n

Colbert’s relentless criticism of Trump, his denunciation of the settlement, and the parent company’s pending sale could not be ignored, said Bill Carter, author of The Late Shift, which chronicled the tumultuous happenings in late-night TV in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n

“If CBS thinks people are just going to swallow this, they’re really deluded,” Carter said.<\/p>\n

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