{"id":642276,"date":"2026-05-14T08:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642276\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:18:14","slug":"colberts-late-show-hits-season-high-ratings-with-strike-force-five-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/642276\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert\u2019s ‘Late Show’ Hits Season-High Ratings With Strike Force Five Reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Strike<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Scott Kowalchyk\/CBS\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

First on LateNighter: Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u2019s Late Show just hit a season-to-date ratings high, thanks to Monday night\u2019s Strike Force Five reunion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to preliminary Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Monday\u2019s episode drew 2.819 million total viewers and 231,000 viewers among adults 18-49.<\/p>\n

That marks The Late Show<\/a>\u2019s largest live-plus-same-day total-viewer audience since January 26, 2025, when a special Sunday night episode airing after CBS\u2019 AFC Championship Game coverage delivered a football-fueled lift. To find a higher-rated regular weeknight episode, you have to go back to October 2024, when then-Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a> visited the show in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Monday night\u2019s viewer numbers are likely to grow significantly once delayed-viewing data is factored in. Linear ratings data also don\u2019t include online viewing on YouTube, social media, or Paramount+. (At last count, an extended YouTube upload<\/a> of their appearance had racked up 3.2 million views.)<\/p>\n

The Late Show\u2019s reunion of Strike Force Five, the limited-run podcast launched during the 2023 writers strike, marked the first time Colbert, Jimmy Fallon<\/a>, Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>, Seth Meyers<\/a>, and John Oliver<\/a> have all appeared together on a single late-night show.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve reported, the quintet stuck around after Monday night\u2019s taping to record a brand-new episode<\/a> of their old podcast, which launched online earlier today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Colbert\u2019s two time-slot competitors at the Ed Sullivan Theater with him, both Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/a> and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/a> aired repeats Monday night. Neither show drew even half of Colbert\u2019s audience Monday night, with Kimmel drawing 1.32 million total viewers to Fallon\u2019s 1.28 million.<\/p>\n

Get stories like this in your inbox:\u00a0Sign up for LateNighter\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Scott Kowalchyk\/CBS First on LateNighter: Stephen Colbert\u2019s Late Show just hit a season-to-date ratings high, thanks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88,18040,17114,20991,18041,10674,10675],"class_list":["post-642276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-jimmy-fallon","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-john-oliver","tag-seth-meyers","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}