# CBS is ending ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ next year (May 21, 2026) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [July 17, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000 "2025-07-17T23:57:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/161 "2025-07-24T14:43:13Z")
These people and institutions think you only have to bend the knee once. That’s not how it works. It is possible going after Murdoch, owner of the WSJ and Fox, was a miscalculation. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/162 "2025-07-24T15:27:46Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Giving Colbert another year is either really stupid or some kind of clever PR rope-a-dope I’m too dim to figure out. My guess is that this way they can say that they’re simply not renewing his contract for financial reasons. If they pulled him off the air while continuing to pay him that fig leaf of a lie disappears. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/163 "2025-07-24T15:43:30Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > These people and institutions think you only have to bend the knee once. That’s not how it works. > > It is possible going after Murdoch, owner of the WSJ and Fox, was a miscalculation. The emperor doesn’t calculate. He lashes out when he’s angry. Then it’s up to the handlers to try and make it into something useful. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/164 "2025-07-24T16:11:35Z")
Meanwhile, Paramount paid the creators of South Park over a billion dollars. > **['South Park' creators reach $1.5-billion streaming deal with Paramount](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-07-21/south-park-creators-reach-breakthrough-in-paramount-deal-talks)** > > Paramount has reached an agreement that will bring 'South Park' to streaming service Paramount+ for the first time in the U.S. And then they released their season premiere last night, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone went _directly_ for the jugular. The episode featured Donald as the new version of Saddam Hussein: he’s dating the devil, and numerous references were made to his micro penis. It was rude, crude, and plainly designed to pick a fight. > **[‘South Park’ premiere skewers Trump and Paramount in fiery return | CNN](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/24/entertainment/south-park-premiere-trump-paramount)** > > “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone brought their show back with a vengeance on Wednesday, in an episode that took swings at both the parent company of the network that airs their popular animated series and President Donald Trump. The internet is ablaze with this stuff! [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/hKe8AcdBRbY/maxresdefault.jpg "South Park ruins Donald Trump in their NEW episode - Top 9 Takeaways") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKe8AcdBRbY) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/165 "2025-07-24T16:51:36Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > That’s what happens in authoritarian regimes, the leader controls access to the laws and gets to decide who can and can’t thrive. In that environment, people self-censor. There is a long and after-the-fact regretful tradition of anticipatory obedience to burgeoning autocracy: > **[Resist Authoritarianism by Refusing to Obey in Advance](https://lithub.com/resist-authoritarianism-by-refusing-to-obey-in-advance/)** > > Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themsel… > _In early 1938, Adolf Hitler, by then securely in power in Germany, was threatening to annex neighboring Austria. After the Austrian chancellor conceded, it was the Austrians’ anticipatory obedience that decided the fate of Austrian Jews. Local Austrian Nazis captured Jews and forced them to scrub the streets to remove symbols of independent Austria. Crucially, people who were not Nazis looked on with interest and amusement. Nazis who had kept lists of Jewish property stole what they could. Crucially, others who were not Nazis joined in the theft. As the political theorist Hannah Arendt remembered, “when German troops invaded the country and Gentile neighbors started riots at Jewish homes, Austrian Jews began to commit suicide.”_ > > _The anticipatory obedience of Austrians in March 1938 taught the high Nazi leadership what was possible. It was in Vienna that August that Adolf Eichmann established the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. In November 1938, following the Austrian example of March, German Nazis organized the national pogrom known as Kristallnacht._ Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/166 "2025-07-24T16:59:13Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > According to this cite, [Colbert is the #1 show in late night](https://latenighter.com/news/ratings/late-night-tv-ratings-q2-2025/), although Jimmy Kimmel has slightly better numbers in the 18-49 demographic. he has a viewership of 2.4 million vs Johnny Carson’s 10+ million. He cut his viewership at least in half with his unrelenting attacks on Trump. If it’s political he made it so. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/167 "2025-07-24T17:02:57Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > he has a viewership of 2.4 million vs Johnny Carson’s 10+ million. He cut his viewership at least in half with his unrelenting attacks on Trump. _All_ of the late-night shows have audiences which are far, _far_ smaller than they were 30+ years ago, when Carson reigned. Jimmy Fallon, who is the current actual host of Carson’s old show, has an audience that’s less than half of Colbert’s, and of the three late-night hosts on the major networks, Fallon is the _least_ political. It’s not just Colbert who went political. Our whole culture went that way. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/168 "2025-07-24T17:09:19Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It’s not just Colbert who went political. Our whole culture went that way. If you get paid for viewership it’s not an economically wise decision to piss off half of your potential viewers. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/169 "2025-07-24T17:14:43Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If you get paid for viewership it’s not an economically wise decision to piss off half of your potential viewers. Colbert’s ratings actually went _up_ a bit after his first year – which is the point at which he leaned in more on the anti-Trump stuff. _No_ late-night host is going to pull double the numbers that they currently are, even if they were to go entirely non-political and non-partisan. Linear TV is floundering, many viewers – especially younger viewers – have cut the cord, and that’s the bigger cause of the lower ratings. The days in which any show (entertainment or news) can have a near-universal appeal, the way Carson did, and draw big audiences, are long gone. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/170 "2025-07-24T17:25:10Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > _No_ late-night host is going to pull double the numbers that they currently are, even if they were to go entirely non-political and non-partisan. I disagree with your premise. I seriously doubt he has a Republican base of viewers. He’s cutting out half of his potential source of income and that of CBS. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/171 "2025-07-24T17:28:41Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > If you get paid for viewership it’s not an economically wise decision to piss off half of your potential viewers. If you produce toothless humor watered down so much as to be homeopathic, you lose nearly all your viewership. It’s why I haven’t watched Fallon for years, until last week. He was too anodyne. He’s been slightly less so recently in talking about Trump’s Epstein scandal and the Colbert cancellation. Poking fun at POTUS, and other current events, is Late Night bread and butter, and was even for Johnny Carson. The obvious dangers of the Trump presidency put more urgency and more edge in the late night coverage. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/172 "2025-07-24T17:31:01Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I disagree with your premise. I seriously doubt he has a Republican base of viewers. Of course he doesn’t, just as Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show doesn’t have a Democratic base of viewers. My point is that we have become a polarized society, politics has become entertainment, and it’s what draws eyeballs. I disagree with your premise, which seems to be that, if Colbert had refrained from continuous Trump jokes, that he’d have drawn twice the audience; look at Jimmy Fallon’s weak ratings to see what being anodyne does these days. ETA: I didn’t see @Typo_Knig post as I was posting, but it amuses me that both of us used “anodyne” to describe Fallon’s show. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/173 "2025-07-24T17:37:51Z")
They have to pay him, but are they obligated to actually air the programs? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/174 "2025-07-24T17:49:03Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > They have to pay him, but are they obligated to actually air the programs?   Yes, because as I said earlier, if they just pulled the plug on the show but continued to pay out his contract, it would be blatantly transparent that the reason for the cancellation was political. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/175 "2025-07-24T17:50:47Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > if they just pulled the plug on the show but continued to pay out his contract, it would be blatantly transparent that the reason for the cancellation was political. I think that ship has sailed. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/176 "2025-07-24T17:54:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Yes, because as I said earlier, if they just pulled the plug on the show but continued to pay out his contract, it would be blatantly transparent that the reason for the cancellation was political. But that’s not “obligated.” That’s attempting to do some damage control. And, no, I don’t think that CBS is under a legal/contractual obligation to continue to air the show until the end of Colbert’s contract. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/177 "2025-07-24T17:58:51Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > But that’s not “obligated.” That’s attempting to do some damage contro That’s just what I mean. They have to do it this way to support the lie about why the show was cancelled. > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I think that ship has sailed. No, they still have plausible deniability. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/178 "2025-07-24T17:58:54Z")
There are also multiple unions involved. Canceling without warning could cause issues throughout the organization. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/179 "2025-07-24T18:01:31Z")
Television shows get cancelled before the end of their contracts, and at a moment’s notice, _all the time_. There’s nothing particularly unique about the Colbert show – from a contractual standpoint, at least – and if CBS decided 20 minutes from now that he’s off the air, effective immediately, the network would handle it the way they handle cancelling any show. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000/180 "2025-07-24T18:04:38Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > look at Jimmy Fallon’s weak ratings to see what being anodyne does these days. It’s funny you both used the same word. I had to look up anodyne. Johnny Carson had comedians of all sorts on his show that didn’t survive on a diet of Lenny Bruce. He was a great interviewer and respected his guests. I disagree that you have to be a political attack dog to get viewers. Carson was a class act and so was Jay Leno. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cbs-is-ending-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-next-year-may-21-2026/1021000.md?page=10)