CBS is ending ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ next year

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Ogie Ogilthorpe said:
The people have spoken!
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Colbert dominates the late night ratings versus Kimmel & Fallon. Additionally, the Colbert Report has 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

The people haven’t spoken-Paramount (CBS’ parent company) just sold out the CBS News division to push through a merger and is sensitive to criticism-which Colbert did three nights ago on his show.

It’s yet another cowardly and craven act by a corporation in these times that is in direct contrast to what the “people” want.
 


Never watched one second of it. In fact I haven’t watched one second of any late night shows in MSM
 
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coolhandgopher said:
Colbert dominates the late night ratings versus Kimmel & Fallon. Additionally, the Colbert Report has 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

The people haven’t spoken-Paramount (CBS’ parent company) just sold out the CBS News division to push through a merger and is sensitive to criticism-which Colbert did three nights ago on his show.

It’s yet another cowardly and craven act by a corporation in these times that is in direct contrast to what the “people” want.
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Another example of the public sector corrupting the private sector.

Trump is the most statist president thus country has ever had.

The GOP has become the commie party.
 

Johnny Carson broke the mold. Leno pretty good too. All downhill since then.
 

coolhandgopher said:
Colbert dominates the late night ratings versus Kimmel & Fallon. Additionally, the Colbert Report has 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
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The information you have here kinda contradicts itself. Colbert may dominate Kimmel and Fallon in ratings but a quick Google search of YouTube subscribers came up with this:

  1. In a ranking of the top YouTube channels among late-night shows, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert currently sits at #7 with 10 million subscribers.
    For context, the top three shows in the ranking are:
    1. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: 33M subscribers
    2. The Late Late Show with James Corden: 28M subscribers

By most metrics, it's a terrible show, one that has substantially narrowed it's target audience over the last several years. When you make the business decision to continually alienate more and more of your potential viewer audience/pool, sooner or later your business is going to suffer.
 
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coolhandgopher said:
Colbert dominates the late night ratings versus Kimmel & Fallon. Additionally, the Colbert Report has 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

The people haven’t spoken-Paramount (CBS’ parent company) just sold out the CBS News division to push through a merger and is sensitive to criticism-which Colbert did three nights ago on his show.

It’s yet another cowardly and craven act by a corporation in these times that is in direct contrast to what the “people” want.
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For 2Q2025:
  • Gutfeld averaged 3,289,000 viewers and makes about $7M per year
  • Colbert averaged 2,417,000 viewers and makes about $15M per year
CBS needs to make a change as Colbert's spiel isn't working anymore. I do hope Colbert shows up somewhere else though, sort of like Tucker did when he got axed from Fox.
 

Ogie Ogilthorpe said:
The information you have here kinda contradicts itself. Colbert may dominate Kimmel and Fallon in ratings but a quick Google search of YouTube subscribers came up with this:

  1. In a ranking of the top YouTube channels among late-night shows, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert currently sits at #7 with 10 million subscribers.
    For context, the top three shows in the ranking are:
    1. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: 33M subscribers
    2. The Late Late Show with James Corden: 28M subscribers

By most metrics, it's a terrible show, one that has substantially narrowed it's target audience over the last several years. When you make the business decision to continually alienate more and more of your potential viewer audience/pool, sooner or later your business is going to suffer.
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I brought the 10 million You Tube subscribers into the conversation separate from the ratings numbers; while I could be accused of being disingenuous with not including Fallon or others in that reference, I truly wasn’t—it was a statistic I saw online to bolster the ratings numbers.

What the ratings tell us, from the second quarter of 2025 is that Colbert was the only late night show that grew its audience (slightly, by 1%) and the average viewers fell in line like this:
Colbert-2.42 million
Kimmel-1.77
Fallon-1.19

And while ratings no longer tell the story of any broadcast network show, I would place my life savings that the next person to occupy that time slot will pale in comparison to what Colbert was bringing in.

“By most metrics” is a conveniently vague phrase. What other metrics are we talking about here? The Outkick demographic? Truth Social users? Your opinion and other like minded people might despise Colbert and glory in his cancellation but that’s not a metric. The fact of the matter is that the late night host that had the largest audience tuning in after the late night news, along with a sizable group following him on social media just got cancelled and the reason given by Paramount is suspect (and I am being generous with that description).
 

Full Speed Ahead said:
For 2Q2025:
  • Gutfeld averaged 3,289,000 viewers and makes about $7M per year
  • Colbert averaged 2,417,000 viewers and makes about $15M per year
CBS needs to make a change as Colbert's spiel isn't working anymore. I do hope Colbert shows up somewhere else though, sort of like Tucker did when he got axed from Fox.
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It should also be added, while Gutfield’s numbers far outpace Colbert’s, he’s also coming onto screens at 9pm central time, a full hour and a half before Colbert and the rest. Gutfield’s show is shown during traditional prime time format.
 



coolhandgopher said:
And while ratings no longer tell the story of any broadcast network show, I would place my life savings that the next person to occupy that time slot will pale in comparison to what Colbert was bringing in.
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I don't think it will be a "person" replacing Colbert in that time slot as well as the one after it. CBS is getting completely out of the post-late night news talk show game.

No idea how they will use the time slots. Game show? Scripted? Entertainment/magazine? Reruns? Comedians? More news?
 

coolhandgopher said:
And while ratings no longer tell the story of any broadcast network show, I would place my life savings that the next person to occupy that time slot will pale in comparison to what Colbert was bringing in.
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I 100% agree with you on this; Colbert chased off a ridiculous number of viewers already that will just never come back. Combine that with more people opting for other platforms and mediums, those people he chased away are gone for good

coolhandgopher said:
“By most metrics” is a conveniently vague phrase. What other metrics are we talking about here? The Outkick demographic? Truth Social users? Your opinion and other like minded people might despise Colbert and glory in his cancellation but that’s not a metric. The fact of the matter is that the late night host that had the largest audience tuning in after the late night news, along with a sizable group following him on social media just got cancelled and the reason given by Paramount is suspect (and I am being generous with that description).
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Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, and I've said this dozens of times here over the years, I'm a businessman and I will never, ever, ever understand someone willingly and knowingly alienating up to 50% of your potential client/customer base; whether you're in Hollywood, or own a coffee shop, or have a late night TV show. I'm guessing, (as many of us grew up in a similar time, cool) none of us grew up knowing where Johnny Carson or Letterman or Leno were politically.

You can say I don't like Colbert because of where he is politically, and that's true, but more importantly I think he's an idiot that willingly and knowingly used his platform to alienate and chase away millions of viewers. That's stupid. Like galactically stupid. Crying on national TV over election results.... WTF....
 

coolhandgopher said:
Colbert dominates the late night ratings versus Kimmel & Fallon. Additionally, the Colbert Report has 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

The people haven’t spoken-Paramount (CBS’ parent company) just sold out the CBS News division to push through a merger and is sensitive to criticism-which Colbert did three nights ago on his show.

It’s yet another cowardly and craven act by a corporation in these times that is in direct contrast to what the “people” want.
Click to expand...
I think the Late Night genre is on its last legs and 10 years from now, only The Tonight Show will still exist (maybe). That said, they probably sped this up by a few years to curry favor with the Feds.
 

I don't mind someone being openly liberal - I still enjoy John Stewart even when I disagree with him, but Colbert has gotten very smug and not nearly as entertaining as he once was. The Colbert Report was great, the Late Show was not so much.
 

Full Speed Ahead said:
For 2Q2025:
  • Gutfeld averaged 3,289,000 viewers and makes about $7M per year
  • Colbert averaged 2,417,000 viewers and makes about $15M per year
CBS needs to make a change as Colbert's spiel isn't working anymore. I do hope Colbert shows up somewhere else though, sort of like Tucker did when he got axed from Fox.
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To be fair, Fox News could just run clips of Biden "gaffs" on a loop for the full hour with no host and it would still draw 3 million viewers. And no one would notice the difference.
 

Ope3 said:
I don't think it will be a "person" replacing Colbert in that time slot as well as the one after it. CBS is getting completely out of the post-late night news talk show game.

No idea how they will use the time slots. Game show? Scripted? Entertainment/magazine? Reruns? Comedians? More news?
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The show is definitely not being replaced. They might just give it to the affiliates to program.
 

howeda7 said:
The show is definitely not being replaced. They might just give it to the affiliates to program.
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Game shows seem to be growing even more in Prime Time, maybe they will give that a whirl.

I should have included Realty as a possibility.

Since they going to blow it all up anyway, maybe the way to go is just have a different genre/show for each night of the week
 

Ope3 said:
Game shows seem to be growing even more in Prime Time, maybe they will give that a whirl.

I should have included Realty as a possibility.

Since they going to blow it all up anyway, maybe the way to go is just have a different genre/show for each night of the week
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Game shows are cheap and draw the same or better (poor) ratings as scripted shows these days. Sports are the only thing keeping the broadcasts networks alive at this point.
 



howeda7 said:
Game shows are cheap and draw the same or better (poor) ratings as scripted shows these days. Sports are the only thing keeping the broadcasts networks alive at this point.
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Maybe they will throw something sports related in the slot.

Wednesday Night Pickleball.
 

Ope3 said:
Maybe they will throw something sports related in the slot.

Wednesday Night Pickleball.
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Time to fire up a show on sports gambling! Now THAT would draw some viewers!

It's not available on many platforms (I only know of it on YouTube TV?), but one of the channels I leave on during the day in the background, especially since ESPN went to shit, is VSiN, a 24-hr sports gambling network. They have some entertaining hosts, not all of it is great, but I like some of the shows and hosts, mainly the ones that talk about the NFL.

Or, something like what you referenced here on Wed Night!!

Thursday Night Mowing League
 

Hell, the broadcast channels might as well roll it back to the ‘70s, save some cash, and bring this back (except at 10:30, not midnight):

On second thought, at 11:00-first run Cheers reruns; Cheers always felt right at 10:30. And of course, Benny Hill on Sunday nights.
 



Really, there isn't much to be done with the celebrity guest format anymore.
They all can reach an audience directly without needing a talk show appearance.
And for a lot of the time, Johnny had the only viable one.
Locally, ch 11 got better ratings at 10:30 with Cheers reruns than they got the the Carson monologue--so they pushed him back one half hour. The format was tiring already in the 80s.
 

saintpaulguy said:
Really, there isn't much to be done with the celebrity guest format anymore.
They all can reach an audience directly without needing a talk show appearance.
And for a lot of the time, Johnny had the only viable one.
Locally, ch 11 got better ratings at 10:30 with Cheers reruns than they got the the Carson monologue--so they pushed him back one half hour. The format was tiring already in the 80s.
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No doubt, all of this can be true, at the same time as the fact, he ran the show into the ground and he just wasn't funny. I think it's safe to say it's a combination of all of these points, on that we most certainly agree.
 

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