Who is next after Stephen Colbert? The death of late-night TV... and the unlikely conservative star
CBS and its parent company, Paramount, announced that Colbert's show would 'end its historic run' in May 2026, just over a decade after it first launched.
'We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire the Late Show franchise at that time,' the broadcast executives said.
'We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and his broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.'
In fact, Colbert, 61, had the best ratings of all the traditional late-night 11.35pm show hosts before he got the chop.
The veteran presenter attracted 2.42 million viewers across 41 first-run episodes - easily outpacing ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live! which had 1.77 million, and NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon which had 1.19 million, per LateNighter.
According to the TV specialist news site, the Late Show was the only one among nine mainstream programs tracked which drew more viewers in the second quarter of 2025 than the first, with a small audience growth of one percent.
So it's no wonder that Colbert's axing has got other left-leaning hosts shaking in their boots.
Kimmel, 57, blasted CBS via his Instagram stories. He reposted Colbert's announcement with the caption: 'Love you Stephen. F**k you and all your Sheldons CBS.'
Late night talk show host Andy Cohen, 57, also said he was 'stunned' by the news.
'I can't believe CBS is turning off the lights at 11:30 after the local news. I'm stunned. He's one of three late-night shows deemed worthy enough for an Emmy nomination. He produces a brilliant show,' he told Deadline.
'I think it's a sad day for late-night television. I think it's a sad day for CBS. I think Stephen Colbert is a singular talent. He's going to have an incredible next chapter.'
While it's likely that Colbert's demise could spark a bonfire of late-night shows like Kimmel's and Cohen's as the younger generation turns to TikTok over TV, there's also an unlikely rising star still attracting viewers to the small screen.
Greg Gutfeld on Fox News has been disrupting the TV genre once monopolized by the likes of Colbert, and Seth Meyers, whose Late Night with Seth Meyers show on NBC reigns supreme for post-midnight ratings.
Gutfeld! dominated late-night TV ratings in the second quarter of 2025 with an average of three million viewers.
This comes with a caveat that the show starts 95 minutes earlier than Colbert's, filling Fox News' 10pm slot, and attracts many of the right-wing network's faithful viewers who watch the network for several hours a day.
But it's not all down to timings and Fox's following - as Gutfeld attracted a key demographic of the smartphone generations who are being lost to online media.
The show was watched by 365,000 people aged between 25 and 54 in the second quarter of 2025, according to MSN.
Gutfeld! has a similar structure to the other late shows, with a monologue, roundtable, recurring gags, and rotating co-hosts, but behind the scenes it's a very different story.
The show reportedly runs off a creative team of around 20 people, according to Mediate, making it more authentic than its polished, liberal competitors.
As a result, it attracts viewers who wanted real talk over highly-scripted mainstream comedy.
The Late Show was also beleaguered by Trump's threats to sue his network, while Fox News enjoyed a post-election boom.
Colbert's program was cancelled just days after the host blasted the network's $16 million settlement with President Trump as a 'big fat bribe.'
Taking aim at CBS and Paramount Global, Trump's lawsuit accused producers of editing an October interview with Harris to sway public opinion in her favor.
The broadcast channel is also facing a probe by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) into whether the interview violated 'news distortion' rules.
Complainants said the station broke the law by cherry picking only a portion of Harris' answer to a question about Middle East policy to present her in a favorable light.
Trump's lawsuit coincided with a planned $8.4 billion merger between Paramount and Skydance, which requires approval from the FCC.
Though the agency is prohibited from censorship or infringing the First Amendment rights of media, broadcasters cannot intentionally distort the news.
CBS previously said the complaint aims to turn 'the FCC into a full-time censor of content' which would result in an unconstitutional role and an impossible one for the agency.
In January, the FCC's chair Brendan Carr reinstated complaints about the 60 Minutes interview with Harris, as well as complaints about how Walt Disney's ABC News moderated the pre-election TV debate between then-President Joe Biden and Trump.
It also reinstated complaints against Comcast's NBC for allowing Harris to appear on 'Saturday Night Live' shortly before the election.
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