The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is going off air in May 2026, a decision hailed by United States President Stephen Colbert, a frequent target of the comedian.
The announcement by CBS on Thursday that it will cancel the show comes against the backdrop of a looming merger between its parent company Paramount with Skydance Media.
It also comes only days after the comedian called out Paramount for its $16m settlement with Trump. Trump, in a lawsuit, had alleged that 60 Minutes, the flagship news magazine at CBS, doctored an interview during the 2024 presidential campaign with his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.
Colbert, a longtime critic of the president, called the network’s decision to settle “a big fat bribe” because of the pending merger, which needs approval from the Department of Justice and is valued at $8bn.
“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” the president wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
“His talent was even less than his ratings,” he added, before going after Colbert’s other two rivals, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, saying that they are next, without evidence.
Contrary to the president’s claims, Colbert is performing well — his is the highest rated show in late night television — averaging 2.42 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025.
The cancellation also ended the tenure of the long-running late-night franchise, replacing the Pat Sajak show in 1993, and was first hosted by David Letterman.
Financial pressures
“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,” CBS said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
CBS previously cancelled another late-night show, After Midnight, hosted by comedian Taylor Tomlinson, after a two-year run.
Experts believe there is merit to that argument.
“The reality is the business of late night is not going anywhere that justifies the enormous salaries that this talent is paid and the costs that these productions have. Ultimately, if you’re producing late night, it is mostly going to be consumed on YouTube,” Andrew Rosen, founder of the media strategy firm Parqor, told Al Jazeera.
The show reportedly costs $100m to produce annually and loses about $40m in revenue, according to reporting from the outlet Puck.
“They’ve [CBS] just maxed out the model for as long as they can and for a variety of reasons that I think probably have more to do with the economics of the merger with Skydance than they do with Trump,” Rosen added, referring to Paramount’s efforts to cut costs as it focuses to merge with Skydance.
On Wall Street, Paramount’s stock is up 0.2 percent as of 1pm in New York (17:00 GMT).
Political timing
The announcement of the cancellation of the show comes as the Department of Justice considers the merger. Economics apart, the move is also being seen as political in nature.
“The timing of it raises a lot of questions. To me, it is the politics of it, especially for broadcast legacy media,” Rodney Benson, professor, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, told Al Jazeera.
The Trump White House has gone after news organisations and their parent media companies for what the administration says is coverage that is partisan in nature, including the $16m lawsuit that Paramount settled with Trump. In December, Disney-owned ABC News settled a defamation suit with a $15m donation to Trump’s library and issued a public apology over inaccurate on-air comments. There have also been cuts to public media and use of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to threaten the future of their broadcasting licenses.
“Broadcast networks are regulated by the FCC. They have to have their licences renewed, and they can be, the government can go after them for what they define as news distortion. They’ve already raised that,” Benson added.
Democrats have called out the network for the cancellation of the show and alleged political reasoning.
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on social media platform X formerly known as Twitter.
“Long-term financial trends could underlie this, but the timing suggests that if it was just financial, then they would have wanted to wait a bit, the optics are just horrible, so there must have been some pressure,” Benson added.
Skydance, the company set to acquire Paramount, is led by David Ellison, who is the son of Larry Ellison, the Oracle CEO and a close Trump ally.
In April, David Ellison attended a UFC fight with the president alongside former confidante Elon Musk, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy and Ted Cruz, among others.
Skydance is also reportedly in talks to acquire The Free Press, an outlet that has been seen as right-wing and friendly to the president. In the last few days, it has published pieces called “Happy Independence Day, NPR” when US Congress voted to scrap public media funding and accusing NPR of liberal bias; and another “The Epstein Files Are Just a Sideshow” as the president rails against releasing files related to deceased sex offender Jeffery Epstein, who Trump has been pictured with.
