Late-Night Hosts React to Stephen Colbert Show Cancellation

Late-night television hosts, including Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon, have spoken out in support of Stephen Colbert following CBS‘ decision to cancel The Late Show franchise.

Newsweek reached out to Colbert’s representative for comment on Tuesday via email outside regular working hours.

The Context

CBS made the bombshell announcement about The Late Show, which has been on air for over 30 years, on Thursday. In a press release sent to Newsweek at the time, the network called their decision “agonizing” and said: “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.”

The financial reasons mentioned in their statement are tied to Paramount and Skydance Media’s merger, which requires Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval under President Donald Trump‘s administration. The $8 billion deal is expected to close on or before October.

Three days prior to the announcement, Colbert—who has long been a critic of Trump—called out CBS parent company Paramount for reaching a $16 million settlement with the politician.

In October, Trump accused CBS News’ 60 Minutes of editing an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in a “deceitful” way, which the show denied. At the time, Harris was the Democratic nominee running against Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

What To Know

On Thursday’s episode of The Late Show, Colbert reacted to its cancellation: “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May,” he said, as the audience booed. “Yeah, I share your feelings.”

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS,” the comedian continued. “I’m not being replaced, this is all just going away, and I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. I’m so grateful to the Tiffany Network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home. And of course I’m grateful to you, the audience, who have joined us every night.”

After learning of The Late Show‘s cancellation, Trump posted his own reaction to Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”

In his first show back since the announcement, Colbert prepared a comeback to the president: “How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?” he asked. “Go f***yourself.”

What People Are Saying

Jon Stewart, whose The Daily Show is owned by Paramount, said on Monday’s episode: “I acknowledge late night TV is a struggling financial model… but when your industry is faced with changes, you don’t just call it a day. My God! When CDs stopped selling, they didn’t just go, ‘Oh well, music, it’s been a good run.’ The fact that CBS didn’t try to save their number one rated network late night franchise, that’s been on the air for over three decades, is part of what’s making everybody wonder, ‘Was this purely financial or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger?’

“I understand the corporate fear. I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake, but understand this, truly, the shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those f***ing shows. That’s what made you that money. Shows that say something, shows that take a stand, shows that are unafraid. Believe me, this is not a ‘We speak truth to power.’ We don’t; we speak opinions to television cameras, but we try. We f***ing try every night. If you believe as corporations or as networks, you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar, why will anyone watch you and you are f***ing wrong.”

Jimmy Fallon addressed Colbert’s exit on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon: “Everybody is talking about CBS’ decision to end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and many people are now threatening to boycott the network. CBS could lose millions of viewers plus tens of hundreds watching on Paramount+. Stephen has done years of incredibly smart and hilarious television, and he’s won 10 Emmys. Trump heard and was like, ‘Big deal, last week I just won a FIFA World Cup trophy, so…'”

Last week, Jimmy Kimmel wrote in a now-expired Instagram Stories post, per People: “Love you Stephen. F*** you and all your Sheldons CBS.”

John Oliver told the Associated Press: “It’s very sad. I love, obviously, Stephen. I love his staff. I love that show. It’s incredibly sad. I’m partly excited to see what they’re going to do for the next 10 months. But yeah, it’s terrible, terrible news for the world of comedy. Late night shows mean a lot to me, not just because I work in them but because, even growing up in England, I would watch Letterman’s show, which of course was Stephen’s show, and think about what a glamorous world that was. So to have got to have been on Letterman’s show and on Stephen’s show is always one of the most fun things. So it’s very, very, very sad news. I look forward to seeing what he’s going to do next because that man will not stop.”

Andy Cohen, who hosts Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, said on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live: “I think it is possible that it’s losing money, and typically what would happen if a show is losing money that is also super important to the network, which that show, and the late night time slot has been important to CBS for the last 25 years since Letterman began it on CBS at the Ed Sullivan Theater in like the mid-nineties, what they would probably do is say, ‘Listen, Stephen, your show is losing X amount of money a year. There’s two things we could do. We could cut the budget in half, maybe move out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, do the show in a small studio that we already own,’ because CBS has a lot of studio space.

“Cut down on staff. You have 200 people working here. We needed to be 100 people or 60, and instead of you doing your show five days a week, we’re gonna do your show four days a week, and you’re gonna gonna pre-tape your Thursday show, so you’re actually gonna be in production three days a week. That’s a way right there to cut the budget at least in half.

“As opposed to saying out of nowhere, as he portrayed it, they called him in and said, ‘Your show’s losing money. We’re canceling it in a year.’

“It’s like, or they would say, ‘Stephen, by the end of the year, we need to make these cuts and we’ll give you another year, but we want to give you another year or two with all these cuts and then we’re gonna see we’re gonna cut our losses and if you wind up, you know, losing X amount, whatever.’ Instead they’re turning the lights out completely at 11:30, which says to me, it’s like CBS is just cooked. I mean, you got, it’s just, it is cooked. They are saying, ‘We are done.'”

What Happens Next

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will air its final episode ever in May 2026.