‘The Late Show’ host Stephen Colbert has officially announced the last date of his late-night talk show. Airing on CBS, Colbert has headlined the segment for over three decades, following which its cancellation was announced in July 2025. According to the statement issued by the channel, ‘The Late Show’ is being taken down as ‘purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop’.
This comes after Colbert’s show was under fire for criticising Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement with US President Donald Trump. The Late Show host called it a ‘big fat bribe’ triggering a series of fiery cancellation threats.
Stephen Colbert announces Late Show retirement
Colbert announced during his appearance at NBC’s ‘Late Night With Seth Meyers’. He put a fixed date on the upcoming cancellation for July 2025. While the channel announced it as a means of cutting their losses, Colbert said, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” in his monologue. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” he added.
He announced that ‘The Late Show’ with Stephen Colbert will conclude on May 21, bringing an end to the 30-year-old CBS franchise. Launched in 1993, the show followed David Letterman’s departure from NBC to CBS. It shaped as a cultural phenomenon long before Colbert took over in 2015.
Colbert expressed the finality of CBS’ decision as late-night shows struggle to find an audience. Several streaming services and OTT platforms have taken over the market entirely as a younger audience prefers to watch shorter clips online. Thus, as the viewership declines, so does the advertisement revenue, making it hard to make ends meet and keep the shows’ profitable continuation.
The Colbert effect
Following the cancellation announcement of Colbert’s show, September 2025 saw a shaky future for other talk show hosts. It came after the sudden death of Charlie Kirk and the alleged comments made by Jimmy Kimmel, which were labelled ‘insensitive’. His show was briefly ‘suspended’ at the time, as the producers figured out a way to keep ‘Jimmy Kimmel live’ alive. It not only invited a storm of support from MAGA online but also from Trump himself, as he called Kimmel unfunny. Several industry icons like Jimmy Fallon, Letterman, Jon Stewart, Wanda Yvette Skyes, and Jean Smart also extended support to Kimmel.