Stephen Colbert, host of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, has less than two weeks left at CBS. His final episode, thank God, airs May 21, closing an 11-year run that began after David Letterman left the desk in 2015.
CBS announced in July 2025 that the show would end after the 2025-26 broadcast season. George Cheeks, co-CEO of Paramount Global and president CEO of CBS; Amy Reisenbach, president of CBS Entertainment; and David Stapf, president of CBS Studios, called a financial decision in a difficult late-night market.
“‘THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT’ will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season. We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire THE LATE SHOW franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.
This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.
Yup. Finances are the reason Colbert is leaving the air, not the lack of humor or the low-ranked broadcasts night after night.
Colbert's fans will frame his exit as some grand loss for comedy.
Fine. Let them light the candles and play the sad trombone. Plenty of viewers saw something else for years: a late-night host who traded broad comedy for partisan comfort food. He didn't hide his politics, instead building the show around them.
Conservatives weren't merely targets; they became the nightly punching bag, and the laughter often sounded less like comedy than applause from people who already agreed with every punchline.
Nothing captured Colbert's act better than The Vax-Scene, his pandemic-era vaccine musical number with dancers dressed as syringes. Colbert sang and danced through a pro-vaccine routine set to “Tequila” while the syringe dancers bounced around the stage.
In the summer of 2020 Stephen Colbert aired a sketch warning people to be skeptical of vaccines and Big Pharma.
— MAZE (@mazemoore) May 7, 2026
Eleven months later with Biden as President, Colbert was dancing for the vaccine.
This sanctimonious shill will be off the air soon.pic.twitter.com/uUR5e3klm9
It looked like a public health memo escaped from a middle school theater department.
Viewers who wanted jokes got advocacy with jazz hands borrowed from Minn. Gov. Tim Walz. Even people who supported vaccination could look at the routine and wonder when late-night comedy became a booster clinic with bad choreography.
Colbert never lacked talent; his work on The Colbert Report had timing, discipline, and a clear character. It was fictional, of course. His CBS years frequently felt different; the old satirical blade became a rubber stamp for one side of American politics.
President Donald Trump gave Colbert endless material, and Colbert responded by becoming exactly what his audience expected every night.
Trump joke. Smirk. Applause. Repeat until closing credits.
Late-night television once welcomed viewers at the end of a long day. Colbert often made it feel like mandatory attendance at a faculty lounge gripe session.
CBS now plans to replace The Late Show time slot with Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed after Colbert signs off. Allen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Allen Media Group, built a long career as a comedian, host, producer, and media owner.
CBS moving away from the old franchise says plenty about late-night television's condition. The business has changed; ratings have softened, costs remain heavy. Yet audiences have more choices than ever, and fewer viewers seem interested in being scolded after the local news.
Expect Colbert to receive a polished goodbye. Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Myers, and John Oliver, not exactly comedic heavyweights, are scheduled to appear during his final stretch.
David Letterman returns May 14, and other guests include far-left entertainers such as former President Barack Hussein Obama, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, and Tom Hanks. Viewers who loved Colbert will enjoy the farewell parade. Viewers who grew tired of the smug lectures can watch the countdown clock and feel no guilt at all.
Colbert leaves with awards, fame, money, and plenty of admirers. Nobody needs to pretend he'll be wandering Broadway with a cardboard sign and a kazoo. Yet his exit still feels like a marker, where a certain style of late-night politics has grown stale. People can get anti-Trump monologues anywhere; by hoping online, they can get partisan sneering by the truckload and save themselves the commercials.
May 21 can't come fast enough for those of us who remember when late-night hosts tried to make the whole country laugh. Colbert turned too much of his show into a political clubhouse, but with a band.
The dancing syringes didn't create that problem; they just gave it legs, costumes, and a tune — not to mention a visual nobody asked to see twice.
Late-night comedy didn’t die in one night, but Stephen Colbert’s exit shows how badly the old model has worn out its welcome. For more sharp, plain-spoken commentary without the network-approved lecture circuit, become a PJ Media VIP member today. Use promo code FIGHT for 60% off your subscription.
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