{"id":586586,"date":"2026-04-06T20:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586586\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:52:08","slug":"cbs-leases-late-night-to-byron-allen-after-stephen-colbert-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/586586\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Leases Late Night to Byron Allen After Stephen Colbert Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d ends its run next month, CBS has opted to turn its 11:35 p.m. ET post-local news timeslot into a time buy, selling the slot to Byron Allen<\/a> \u2014 who will move back-to-back episodes of his \u201cComics Unleashed<\/a>\u201d series down an hour.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe time buy deal is through the 2026-2027 TV season; as part of the deal, Allen will also continue to lease the 12:37 a.m. hour with another strip from his company, the comedy game show \u201cFunny You Should Ask<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Late Show\u201d airs its finale<\/a> on May 21 \u2014 wrapping a franchise that first started in 1993 when David Letterman moved to the Eye network from his NBC perch (having been passed over for \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d). Colbert has been hosting \u201cThe Late Show\u201d since Letterman retired in 2015. Allen will take over the time slot the following night, on May 22.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Allen has paid CBS to run two episodes of \u201cComics Unleashed\u201d \u2014 usually a new episode paired with a library half-hour \u2014 at 12:37 a.m. ET in recent years. First, he took the slot during a 2023-to-2024 gap after \u201cThe Late Late Show With James Corden\u201d ended and before \u201cAfter Midnight\u201d launched in January 2024. He once again took the slot in September 2025 as \u201cAfter Midnight\u201d ended its run.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI created and launched \u2018Comics Unleashed\u2019 20 years ago so my fellow comedians could have a platform to do what we all love \u2013 make people laugh,\u201d said Allen, the founder\/chairman\/CEO of Allen Media Group, said in a statement. \u201cI truly appreciate CBS\u2019 confidence in me by picking up our two-hour comedy block of \u2018Comics Unleashed\u2019 and \u2018Funny You Should Ask,\u2019 because the world can never have enough laughter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS and Allen haven\u2019t revealed how much Allen and his Allen Media Group pays for the 12:37 a.m. slot, and it\u2019s unclear how much more he might pay the network to take over 11:35 p.m. as well. In traditional time buys, a company will lease a time period from a network, and then sell the advertising itself. So in effect, CBS will be making money for the hour \u2014 even though its ratings will likely go down as it loses what has been the No. 1 talk show in late night in \u201cThe Late Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to insiders, even though it\u2019s a time buy from Allen, both \u201cComics Unleashed\u201d and \u201cFunny You Should Ask\u201d are considered national network programming \u2014 and the Eye expects its affiliates to continue to clear CBS late night and air both shows.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComics Unleashed\u201d originally shot around 233 episodes between 2006 and 2016 as a syndicated series before resuming production on new episodes for the 2025-2026 TV season on CBS. The show is executive produced by Allen, Carolyn Folks, Jennifer Lucas, Jodi Miller, Peter Steen and Dylan King.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for \u201cFunny You Should Ask,\u201d the series premiered in syndication as a first-run strip in September 2017. Jon Kelley hosts the gamer, which is exec produced by Allen, Carolyn Folks, Jennifer Lucas, Bob Boden, Jodi Miller, Peter Steen, Scott Satin and Eric Charbonnel.<\/p>\n

\n\tAllen has been lobbying to take over the 11:35 p.m. slot from almost the moment that it was revealed that \u201cThe Late Show\u201d was ending. \u201cIf they\u2019re looking for a show, my hand is already up,\u201d Allen said during New York\u2019s Advertising Week event<\/a> last October. \u201c50 years, I\u2019ve been waiting for this moment. Definitely, I\u2019m going for it\u2026 I\u2019m investing millions and millions of dollars to prove myself at 12:35.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith CBS going from paying for an expensive late night show to being paid for the time slot, network insiders note that this now makes the Eye profitable in late night \u2014 and that this is a first step toward reimagining how to do original, economical fare in the time period.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince CBS decided to get out of the late night talk business, other options included returning to drama reruns (\u201cCrimetime After Primetime\u201d), which is what CBS ran before \u201cLate Show With David Letterman\u201d premiered in 1993. Another option was to expand local news to an hour at 11 p.m., giving affiliates an extra half hour.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS announced last July<\/a> that \u201cThe Late Show\u201d would be canceled at the end of May 2026, and contended that it was \u201cpurely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. \u00a0It is not related in any way to the show\u2019s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that excuse was roundly derided, given that CBS owner Paramount Global was in the process of being acquired by Skydance, and needed government approval from an administration that has frequently demanded quid pro quos. And silencing a critic of Donald Trump was seen as a way to curry favor from the administration. Just days earlier, Colbert had criticized Paramount Global\u2019s $16 million settlement with Trump, calling it a \u201cbig fat bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd indeed, almost immediately, Trump wrote on social media<\/a> that \u201cI absolutely love\u2019 that Colbert was fired.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a column for Variety<\/a>, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote that it had an appearance of \u201cbribery in plain sight\u201d: \u201cWas it a coincidence that CBS canceled Colbert just three days after he spoke out? Are we sure that this wasn\u2019t part of a wink-wink deal between the president and a giant corporation that needed something from his administration? If CBS made this decision for \u201cpurely financial\u201d reasons, why the timing? And why did Trump say \u201cI hope I played a major part in\u201d getting Colbert fired? These are fair questions, and ones that I have asked Paramount and Skydance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Writers Guild of America also called for Paramount to be investigated<\/a> for bribery by the New York state attorney general following the news. In one bright result, Colbert won the variety talk Emmy<\/a> in 2025 following the news (late night competitor Jimmy Kimmel even erected a billboard throwing his support toward Colbert).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with GQ<\/a>, Colbert tip-toed around the conventional wisdom that CBS had fired him to please Trump, but he did say, \u201cI can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation \u2014 I\u2019m not going to say who made that decision, because I don\u2019t know; no one\u2019s ever going to tell us \u2014 decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount\u2019s own lawyers, said is completely without merit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRegardless of the reason, Letterman blasted CBS for how it handled Colbert\u2019s firing: \u201cThis is pure cowardice,\u201d he said on his YouTube channel<\/a>. \u201cThey did not do the correct thing. They did not handle Stephen Colbert \u2014 the face of that network \u2014 in the way he deserves to have been handled.\u201d He also posted a flurry of clips<\/a> from his time on \u201cLate Show\u201d mocking CBS, with the caption to the supercut reading, \u201cYou can\u2019t spell CBS without BS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS was once again criticized in February when \u201cThe Late Show\u201d was blocked<\/a> by the network from broadcasting an interview with Texas State Rep.\u00a0James Talarico<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 fearing retribution from the FCC. So, instead the conversation was\u00a0posted on YouTube\u00a0<\/a>and other social media platforms, where at last count, the clip had been viewed more than 9.3 million times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d ends its run next month, CBS has opted to turn its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[223927,49,48,187944,75,223928,6713,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-586586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-byron-allen","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-comics-unleashed","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-funny-you-should-ask","14":"tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}