‘Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ to end next May: ‘This is all just going away’
Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY
Colbert called Paramount’s $16 million settlement ‘big, fat bribe’
Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company, agreed on July 1 to a controversial $16 million settlement with Donald Trump over a defamation lawsuit tied to a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The settlement was widely criticized as a financial concession to facilitate the studio’s pending sale to Skydance Media, which requires regulatory approval from the Trump administration.
In response, Colbert slammed the deal on-air on July 14, following a summer vacation. Colbert, still sporting an unfortunate summer vacation mustache, called the infamous $16 million payment a “big fat bribe” in his scathing opening monologue.
Colbert also mocked reports saying the new Paramount owners would try to “please Trump” by putting “pressure on Stephen Colbert.”
FAFO.
Colbert has zero sense of humor since he was afflicted by TDS. Only old people who still have traditional TV packages watch this Poser Loser.
He played a great conservative caricature on the Daily Show over 20 years ago.
That seems to have been his entire schtick, and now the run is over. Americans are waking up to the fact that we’ve been subjected to the most comprehensive propaganda campaign in history outside of totalitarian dictatorships.
Nobody believes the media anymore, they took their masks off entirely and can’t just put them back on.
Now a T-man with no “expertise” is the most powerful media outlet on Earth. I still think it is hilarious how Democrat strategists believe they can manufacture their own Joe Rogan.
If social media influencers are your barometer, the story checks out.
That’s been one of the weirdest byproduct of mainstream media’s collapse in credibility. Most seem to be clickbait artists who know how to drive engagement, but are incapable of political analysis.
I don’t follow anyone who hasn’t demonstrated competence and depth of thought. It’s basically a new American Wild West over here.
I also follow politicians and government employees directly. I don’t need anyone to “read between the lines” for me and don’t generally trust the people who habitually engage in that sort of Hermetic mysticism.
Heather Cox Richardson is a prime example of an opinion artist who see fascist shaped clouds in the sky every day. Since joining X I’ve noticed plenty of equivalents on the right who can’t write as well as she does.
Plus a lot of AI dipshits who can’t think or write for themselves.
Unfortunately for his fans, Walz won’t be running again in 2028. He won’t be skipping or frolicking in the election, either.
Most people don’t know about Walz ties to the Chinese Communist Party because our media didn’t know about it or didn’t think it was newsworthy.
It’s similar to how Maine only has a few open Democratic Socialists, but you can barely tell the difference in policy and rhetoric if you compare them to Maine Democrat leadership who don’t openly call themselves Socialists.
I knew it was satire but it had a kernel of truth.
Outside of social media the Trump supporters I know don’t care about the scandals nearly as much as they care about things like gunfire, closed businesses, awful and unsafe schools, child kidnapping attempts.
Local democrats seem more concerned about Trump and don’t make any connections between the things I just listed and Democrat policies being enacted in Maine.
This guy got picked up at the bar I used to work at early yesterday morning. Maine Democrats recently passed a law to ensure that ICE won’t be notified if he’s here illegally. 200 Lisbon St. is our public library.
A big reason why lefty late night talk show hosts are failing is because their jokes just don’t have that kernel of truth that is required for them to be funny when the stories they base their jokes on one day turn out to be fabrications or distortions the next.
Of course he has been failing. Your basis for comparison is other failing late night shows. I don’t use ai for much but this is the kind of thing it is reliable for and saves time.
Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show viewership has seen a significant decline over the past five years, reflecting broader trends in late-night television. Here’s a breakdown based on available data:
• 2020-2021 Season: The Late Show averaged 2.95 million nightly viewers, maintaining its position as the top late-night talk show in total viewers.
• 2022: Viewership dropped to approximately 2.8 million viewers.
• 2023: Following the Writers Guild of America strike, the show averaged 2.79 million viewers (live and three-day delayed viewings) for its first week back in October.
• 2024: The show saw a further decline, with an average of around 2.4 million viewers reported for the second quarter, down from nearly 4 million in 2018—a 32% drop over five years.
• 2025 (Q2): The most recent Nielsen ratings for Q2 2025 show The Late Show averaging 2.42 million viewers across 41 first-run episodes, a slight 1% increase from Q1 2025 but still down 9% year-over-year in total viewers. In the 18-49 demographic, viewership was 219,000, slightly behind Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s 220,000.
Key Trends:
• The Late Show has remained the highest-rated late-night talk show for nine consecutive seasons, but its audience has steadily eroded, mirroring a broader decline in late-night TV viewership.
• The show’s peak in recent years was a live episode post-Super Bowl 50 in 2016, with 21.1 million viewers, but regular viewership has not approached those numbers.
• A shift in audience behavior, particularly among younger viewers, toward consuming short clips on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, has contributed to the decline in linear TV viewership.
• Despite the drop, Colbert’s show has maintained a lead over competitors like Jimmy Kimmel Live! (1.77 million viewers) and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (1.19 million viewers) in Q2 2025.
Context:
• The decline is not unique to Colbert; late-night shows across networks have seen similar drops due to competition from streaming services, podcasts, and social media.
• Posts on X and web sources suggest that while Colbert’s ratings remain strong relative to competitors, the overall relevance of late-night TV is waning, particularly among younger audiences.
• The announced cancellation of The Late Show in May 2026, driven by financial losses (reportedly $40 million annually), underscores the economic challenges facing the format.
In summary, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has experienced a roughly 32% viewership decline from 2018 to 2025, dropping from nearly 4 million to 2.42 million viewers, though it remains the top-rated late-night show.
Cable TV watched on a television set with a cable box as a whole is dying off. I haven’t had one for almost 20 years myself. We aren’t in the era of Carson and Leno and Letterman any more. Not to mention there are just so many more shows to watch now.
Basically everything on TV is dropping and everything on Netflix and YouTube is going up.
I don’t take the dropping numbers of TV viewers as a failure or Colbert specifically, but the medium generally. We’d have to tease out the numbers from his online viewership as well to see if the viewers who used to watch him on a TV are now tuning in online.
