When you try to rally the troops… you hope to have more troops.
If you were looking for a sign that late night television programs were on life support, Stephen Colbert getting fired – and The Late Show ending altogether – is your sign. In a shocking development, CBS announced they were canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and they released this statement when they made the news public earlier in July:
“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘The Late Show’ franchise in May of 2026. 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.”
As you can see, CBS cited financial reasons for canceling Colbert, but the timing led many public figures – like Senator Elizabeth Warren – to question if the cancelation was politically motivated. After all, CBS and Paramount just paid a $16 million settlement to Donald Trump after he sued them for editing Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview to make her look better during her 2024 presidential run, and then Colbert blasted the network for it.
It’s no secret that programs like The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! aren’t the juggernauts that they used to be. Network television used to be the end goal… now it’s falling behind, and struggling to keep up with modern media. Still though, Colbert was outpacing his late night competitors, and it wasn’t particularly close. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert averaged 2.42 million viewers per night, while Jimmy Kimmel Live! posted 1.7 million nightly viewers, and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon had around 1.2 million.
That’s why it was so shocking.
Although, the show is reportedly still losing a lot of money as advertisers have moved away from the kind of late night ad budgets they’re accustomed to having.
Because the numbers don’t necessarily add up, and the timing around the settlement and Colbert’s criticism of it can’t be ignored, many are making this out to be a political story. And Stephen Colbert was undoubtedly left-leaning with his show, so it very well could have played a factor. But honestly, this could just be the first step in an eventual collective move by networks away from the late night format. That being said, fans of late night television aren’t going to let the Late Show die without a fight.
There’s been a lot of noise online from fans of Stephen Colbert condemning CBS and Paramount’s decision to cancel his show. Petitions have popped up all over the place, with thousands of people joining the movement in hopes of convincing the network to reverse course and reinstate both the Late Show and Stephen Colbert for the foreseeable future. And though there have been some larger grassroots movements that have gathered, one of the latest protests outside of CBS Studios in New York City was a little weak on the attendance side of things.
Below you can see the “We’re with Colbert” protesters demanding that the late show host be reinstated. The only issue is that the group wasn’t exactly rolling deep as they picketed and shouted. Having a great amount of people at a protest isn’t a necessity, but it does typically help the optics.
Because this right here is certainly not the most convincing protest I’ve ever seen:
Guess they are going for whatever the opposite of “strength in numbers” is?
