Late-Night TV Is On The Precipice After CBS Axes Steven Colbert; Insiders Lament “End Of An Era”

Stephen Colbert was struggling to get through the opening line of his telecast on Thursday, announcing that his turn behind the desk of The Late Show was coming to an end, as well as the fact that CBS was ignominiously axing its storied late-night franchise altogether.

His wife, Evie Colbert, who was watching the taping, was visibly emotional, according to audience members, a group that erupted into boos as the comedian revealed the news that left the fans of his show, the 200 people that work on it and the wider late-night community in a state of shock.

Colbert was told of the cancelation on Wednesday and informed his staff ahead of the taping.

It was a stunning reversal from May when George Cheeks, Co-CEO Paramount Global and President and Chief Executive Officer of CBS, told Deadline that he “really likes our hand” at 11:30pm. Cheeks, who came up in the genre and was President of Late-Night Programming at NBC, said, “The day part is challenging from an ad-sales perspective. I love our hand, we have the number one person at 11:30pm for the last nine years, and we still do believe in the day-part, but it is a challenge,” he said.

Writers, producers and crew were said to be “devastated across the board.” “The Late Show happens to be a very close-knit staff, more so than a lot of other shows, and there’s not an abundance of jobs out there,” one source told Deadline.

The cancelation is the latest bit of bad news for the late-night sector after The Tonight Show was cut back from five nights a week to four, making it the last nightly talk show to revert to four nights a week, while Late Night had its 8G band axed and shoots two shows in one day to save money. There have been rumors that NBC has been mulling bringing together some back-room operations between these two shows to save further cash, though this has been denied by the network.

“It’s the end of an era,” one former network boss who oversaw late-night shows told Deadline.

Another late-night producer told Deadline that the news was “depressing” and “weird.” “I feel like there’s more to this story,” the source added.

Clearly the economics of late-night are no longer what they once were. The Late Show, which is thought to cost slightly less than $75 million per year to produce before adding in Colbert’s salary — which has been pegged in the mid-teen millions — has been losing money for the network. Deadline understands that CBS also came to Colbert, whose contract was up next year, before this season asking for a cut. “Poverty was pled there,” one source said.

But The Late Show is the most-watched late-night show in the country, so if the “Tiffany” network, as Colbert called it in his announcement — a seemingly subtle dig at the once gold-standard broadcaster that soared so high under William S. Paley and broadcasters including Edward R. Murrow — couldn’t make late-night work, who could?

In fact, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert averaged over 600,000 more viewers in the second quarter of the year than its nearest late-night rival. Late Show averaged 2.42 million viewers between April and June, more than ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s 1.77M and 1.23M-plus more viewers than The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallonwhich averaged 1.19M, per Nielsen. However, it’s a slightly different story when it comes to younger audiences – those that advertisers crave – with Kimmel topping the adults 18-49 demo with 220,000 viewers, slightly ahead of Colbert’s 219,000 and well above Fallon’s 157,000.

Digital is also a different story; The Tonight Show has 32.7M subscribers on YouTube, Kimmel has 20.7M and The Late Show 9.96M, important metrics given the preponderance of viewers watching these shows the next day via clips.

CBS has recent form when it comes to canceling late-night shows. The network opted not to stick with The Late Late Show after James Corden stepped down, and it also axed the 12:30 a.m. slot entirely earlier this year when Taylor Tomlinson decided that she wanted to return to stand-up touring in lieu of hosting After Midnight.

Its parent company Paramount, which didn’t help sate conspiracy theorists after canceling The Late Show days after Colbert called its settlement with President Donald Trump a “big fat bribe”, has also been involved in the cancelations of other late-night shows across its networks including Hell of a Week with Charlamagne Tha God after two seasons and Tooning Out the Newswhich were both executive produced by Colbert.

It’s not just Paramount, though. Warner Bros Discovery’s TBS axed Full Frontal With Samantha Bee after seven seasons in 2022. Conanwhich also aired on the network, ended in 2021. NBC axed A Little Late With Lilly Singh in 2021, E!’s Busy Tonight was canceled in 2019, Peacock pulled The Amber Ruffin Show in 2023, HBO’s Pause with Sam Jay only lasted two seasons, and Apple got spooked by The Problem with Jon Stewartending it in 2023.

John Mulaney managed to bring some buzz back to the genre with Netflix’s Everybody’s Live and despite the fact that he appears to be vacillating on a return, Deadline revealed that the streamer initially handed the Baby J comedian a two-season order of his weekly show so we’re not really waiting on a renewal. But this belies the fact that late-night hasn’t really worked in streaming.

What will happen at ABC and NBC?

All eyes will now turn to ABC and NBC as to whether they have faith in the day-part.

Jimmy Kimmel, who signed a new deal in 2022, is contracted through to the end of the 2025-26 broadcast season. In that announcement, the comedian joked he was looking forward to three years of what they call ‘quiet quitting’.” Deadline understands that ABC has no plans to cancel the show and Rob Mills, who oversees late-night, has long said the network will continue to back the company man until he decides to clear out his desk, something over which Kimmel has long ruminated. Kimmel didn’t mince his words yesterday in his reaction to the Colbert news, saying “f*ck you” to CBS and “all your Sheldons,” a veiled reference to the number of Big Bang Theory spinoffs the network has made.

NBC is also keeping quiet since the news broke about Colbert. Last year, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers both reupped their contracts to keep them hosting The Tonight Show and Late Nightrespectively, until 2028, though the network that was caught in the middle of the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien controversy surrounding the show that Johnny Carson made famous does not have the strongest tradition of keeping its word when it comes to its late-night deals.

Fallon and Meyers also both praised Colbert this morning; Fallon said he was “just as shocked as everyone.” “I really thought I’d ride this out with him for years to come,” he added. Meyers said that “for as great a comedian and host he is,” Colbert was an “even better person,” joking that he can no longer use the excuse that he’s ‘too busy to hang out’ with me.”

The fact that Meyers was edged out of the late-night Emmy race – The Late Show, The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! scored the three nominations this year – and The Tonight Show hasn’t been nominated in the main category since 2016, shortly after Fallon’s infamous tussling of Trump’s hair, won’t help the cause. Both shows are exec produced by Lorne Michaels, which helps given the continued importance of Saturday Night Live. But Michaels, who is 80, won’t be around forever.

The Tonight Show is also more protected thanks to its successful ad integrations and both Fallon and Meyers are key talent for the company, working on multiple other shows such as the former’s upcoming fall reality series On Brand. The Tonight Show also has a longer history than other late-night shows, so it would be an even bigger surprise if NBC was to axe it anytime soon.

In cable, the only needle-moving late-night shows air on Paramount’s Comedy Central, HBO and Bravo. Only yesterday, Jon Stewart weighed in on the possibility of The Daily Show being axed once Skydance takes over Paramount, despite drawing record ratings recently. John Oliver, whose contract to host Last Week Tonight comes up next year, has continued to be a renegade voice within the ever-increasingly conservative Warner Bros Discovery family. Andy Cohen is contracted to host Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live through 2027. A “stunned” Cohen told Deadline yesterday that it was a “sad day for late-night television” and that he couldn’t “believe CBS is turning the lights off at 11:30 p.m.”

Yes, there are new digital offerings such as YouTube’s Hot Ones, which has been increasingly in the Emmy conversation in the last few years, and podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience and Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy have replaced late-night in the zeitgeist to some extent. But once these linear shows go, it will be a sad day for an entire segment of television.

What has politics got to do with it?

Then, there’s the politics of it all. Much has been made of the fact that Colbert was axed days after giving his opinion on his parent company’s deal with Trump, something Trump reveled in this morning in a Truth Social post, saying he “absolutely loves that Colbert got fired” and threatening that Kimmel was “next.” He also managed to call Fallon a “moron.”

CBS went out of its way to stress that the Late Show call was a financial decision, but the fact that it came so soon after its settlement with Trump — a move done to help smooth Skydance’s deal to buy Shari Redstone’s Paramount Global — has raised more than a few eyebrows. Stewart, a close friend of Colbert’s, said yesterday that he doesn’t know whether Skydance will keep The Daily Show on the air, but the fact that he said the company may “sell the whole f*cking place for parts” may not have helped its cause.

High-ranking politicians have also started to question the decision. California Sen. Adam Schiff, who was a guest on last night’s Late Showsaid that if Paramount and CBS ended the show for “political reasons, the public deserves to know.” His colleague Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made a similar point, highlighting the timing of the cancelation.

“I actually don’t know which would upset me more if it was just a financial thing, because that indicates the end of late-night and it’s going to go faster than we all thought, or if we find out it was pressure because of this merger and Trump’s power and that’s a much bigger crisis,” one late-night source said.

This all comes as late-night enjoyed a pretty good start to the week with just under 60 Emmy nominations across all of the shows, and more if you add in Conan O’Brien’s global adventures.

National Comedy Center executive director Journey Gunderson called the move to end The Late Show a “conclusion of a pillar of television comedy” and said that the show has “shaped our national conversation.”

It’s a national conversation that just got a bit quieter.