📺 The Late Show, once one of the most valuable time slots in television history, is done💥.
No replacement. No reboot. No rebranding. CBS is walking away from late night altogether.
Not with a bang, but with a shrug.
That's not a programming note—that's an obituary. An institution just died.
What Late Night Meant 💰
When I first got into this business, late night mattered. You could feel it in the air at networks and agencies: The Tonight Show, The Late Show, The Late Late Show—these weren't just time slots, they were appointments, institutions, kingmakers. And The Late Show, in particular, carried weight because of how it was born.
If you've ever seen HBO's The Late Shift, you know the backstory. After Johnny Carson stepped down from The Tonight Show, there was a war—Leno vs. Letterman. A behind-the-scenes bloodbath that consumed NBC and ultimately pushed David Letterman to CBS. That war is what launched The Late Show. It was CBS's entry into the late night arena, their effort to plant a flag and go head-to-head with an American institution.
And for years, they succeeded. Letterman made it matter. Then Colbert came in and burned it down.
How Colbert Killed It
Colbert didn't inherit a broken format. He inherited a crown jewel. And what did he do with it?
He turned it into a political pundit hour with bad punchlines and celebrity fluff. He stopped being a comedian and became a sermonizer. A monologue machine aimed at a very narrow band of the American public.
Yes, he spiked during the Trump years. Everyone did. But the second Trump left the stage, Colbert had nothing left. No gear. No range. No playbook.
Viewership collapsed. Ad revenue withered. The network finally pulled the plug.
The receipts:
Era Avg. Viewership Est. Annual Ad Revenue
Letterman (Peak, ~2009) 4.5–5.5M $271M
Colbert (Peak, 2017–18) 3.8M ~$130–150M
Colbert (2023–24) 2.4M ~$70–90M
To Be Fair, the Fault Is Colbert's—But the Failure Is CBS's Too
Let's be fair. Colbert deserves the blame. But CBS shares the failure.
Because CBS, as a corporation, didn't just let this happen—they encouraged it. They shared his worldview, embraced the political slant, and watched the audience shrink in real time.
And let's not forget who really signs the checks. The sponsors. The whole operation was brought to you by Pfizer, and every other flavorless brand under the sun. Colbert was their mouthpiece, sure—but CBS was the one bottling and selling it.
So the question becomes: what exactly were they selling?
Not comedy. Not reach. Not relevance.
They sold comfort to one political bubble and told everyone else to find the door.
60 Minutes, Same Disease
And this isn't isolated. This is systemic. Late night is just the most recent body. CBS has been gutting its own legacy for years.
Take 60 Minutes. Once the most respected news magazine in the business. Investigative gold standard. Cultural landmark.
Today? Just another cautionary tale.
Recently, CBS paid $16 million to President Trump after it was revealed they manipulated a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris to make her appear sharper, more articulate, more capable than she actually is. That's not journalism. That's state PR.
And the fallout?
Nothing.
No apology. No on-air reckoning. No public shame.
I remember when newsrooms used to hide under their desks when scandals broke. They made movies about it. The Stephen Glass story. The Jayson Blair disaster. The news used to at least pretend to care about accountability. Now they just shrug and hope you scroll past it.
CBS figured if their stories landed on the "right side" of the political spectrum, then journalistic standards were optional. The audience, be damned.
Colbert Was the Comedic Version of the Same Disease
The Late Show stopped being a comedy program and became MSNBC with a studio band.
Comedy went out the window. Reaching both sides of the aisle? Out the window. Honoring the legacy of Letterman or the format itself? Gone.
What stayed?
Corporate pandering. Prepackaged outrage. Soft jokes. And a revolving door of sponsors happy to fund the performance.
So no, this isn't just about one host. This is about CBS.
The Tiffany Network has lost its shine.
Enter Skydance
Which brings us to Skydance and David Ellison—Paramount's soon-to-be owner.
Now, if you're plugged into the media rumor mill, you've probably heard some spin: that Colbert's firing is some kind of appeasement to President Trump, a way for Skydance to grease the wheels politically.
Ridiculous.
A. Trump's already President. B. Colbert has zero ratings or cultural influence left. C. Firing someone who's actively costing you money isn't politics—it's business.
What Skydance understands is simple: the audience matters.
They're not here to serve themselves. They're not here to score points with political pals. They're here to entertain. To get the biggest return on the biggest stage.
They looked at Colbert, and at CBS's entire late-night apparatus, and made the obvious call: this no longer works.
The Final Proof: Gutfeld Wins
Still not convinced?
Greg Gutfeld—on cable, with a news desk, half the budget, and a far smaller platform—is regularly beating Colbert in the ratings.
Let that sink in.
Gutfeld is not Carson. He's not Letterman. He's not even classic Conan. But he's funny enough, smart enough, and he knows exactly who he's playing to. That's more than you can say for Colbert, Fallon, or Meyers.
And that's how this all ends: not with innovation or evolution—but with the quiet burial of something that once mattered.
The Death of Late Night
So we say farewell to Stephen Colbert.
We won't be watching the last year of his show. Neither, apparently, will anyone else.
But this isn't just about one failed host or one cancelled show. This is the death of late night as we knew it. The format that once united America around a shared cultural moment—Carson's monologue, Letterman's top ten, the water cooler conversations the next morning—is gone.
What we're left with are the fragments: partisan echo chambers, niche audiences, and the hollow shell of what was once appointment television. Late night used to be where the country came together to laugh. Now it's where half the country gets lectured while the other half tunes out.
The Late Show dies with Colbert. And with it, the last pretense that late night television matters to anyone beyond a shrinking bubble of true believers.
And let it be said one last time—because it's still true: