After the shock announcement that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be ending after 10 years, fans have been speculating on whether the decision to end the series is really due to financial reasons.
The CBS series will end in May 2026, with the show “just going away,” as Stephen told a live audience last month. In a joint statement, Paramount Global and CBS said the decision was financial “against a challenging backdrop,” adding that it was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters” at Paramount.
Breaking the news himself of July 17, Colbert said, “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.”
The revelation was met with a mixture of outrage and sadness from viewers, with some noting the suspicious nature of the timeline of events. “Just days after Paramount announces it settles the lawsuit Trump brought against them, they announce they are cancelling Stephen Colbert,” one person wrote on social media.
They added, “Can’t help but think the cancelling of Stephen Colbert’s show was part of the settlement that Paramount agreed to. It’s so obvious.”
The announcement came just days after Stephen criticized his parent company for a $16 million settlement with the White House over an interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris on 60 Minutes.
Opening his show that day, Colbert said, “I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s a big, fat bribe.”
Then, days after Paramount confirmed the cancellation, an $8 billion merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was approved by the U.S Federal Communications Commission.
Government conditions were placed on the news division of the network, with “significant changes” made to CBS content. It will also involve the rolling back of Paramount’s DEI work.
The deal was branded a “never before seen form of government control” in a newsroom by FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who voted against the merger.
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Stephen previously presented the satirical news program The Colbert Report on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2014 before taking over from David Letterman as presenter of The Late Show on CBS.
Following the surprise announcement, a boss at Paramount said late-night TV has a “huge problem.” Paramount president Jeff Shell said all late-night shows are facing the same problem and blamed YouTube for taking viewerships and money.
Shell explained, “Late-night has a huge problem right now. The problem is that 80 percent of the viewership and growing is on YouTube.”
He then added that YouTube pays “45 cents on the dollar,” adding that television companies cannot “make it work economically anymore.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.the-express.com ’
