Stephen Colbert\u2019s long goodbye to late-night TV ends on Thursday night when the host of The Late Show appears behind his CBS desk for the final time.<\/p>\n
What is planned for the finale has not been revealed but the folks at The Late Show have had months to prepare for the end of the network\u2019s 33-year franchise.<\/p>\n
Guests in the final week have included Michael Keaton, Jon Stewart, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen, while there’s been a wacky version of It\u2019s Raining Men remade into It\u2019s Raining Fish.<\/p>\n
CBS announced last summer that Colbert\u2019s show would end, citing economic reasons after 11 seasons. But Colbert is the ratings leader in late-night TV. Many \u2014 including Colbert \u2014 have expressed skepticism that President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated criticism of the show wasn’t a factor.<\/p>\n
The decision to shutter the show came after parent company Paramount\u2019s $16 million (NZ$27m) settlement of Trump\u2019s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview as Paramount awaited his administration’s approval of a pending sale to Skydance Media. Colbert had called it a \u201cbig fat bribe”.<\/p>\n
Dustin Kidd, a professor of sociology at Temple University, notes that Colbert leaves at the top of his game and as the ratings leader on late night. Cancelling him can\u2019t be explained strictly through economics, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would argue that it\u2019s answerable, frankly, through politics,\u201d Kidd said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of political pressure levied against this show and a lot of political pressure at work within CBS more generally. And I think that has a lot more to offer in terms of explaining why this show, at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colbert\u2019s chief rivals, ABC\u2019s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC\u2019s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, will both run reruns on Thursday night at the same time as Colbert’s goodbye.<\/p>\n
CBS will fill The Late Show slot with Comics Unleashed, in which comedians share stories. Host Byron Allen has vowed to avoid politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert\u2019s long goodbye to late-night TV ends on Thursday night when the host of The Late Show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,417,437],"class_list":["post-438046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-television","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}