Stephen Colbert says The Late Show will end after 33 years

Watch: Stephen Colbert declares the top of The Late Present in 2026The Late Present with Stephen Colbert will finish in Could 2026 after 33 years on air, the CBS tv community introduced in a shock assertion on Thursday. The transfer “is only a monetary resolution in opposition to a difficult backdrop in late evening [television]” and “is just not associated in any approach to the present’s efficiency, content material or different issues”, CBS stated.Colbert broke the information at a taping of the present, earlier on Thursday night, triggering a refrain of boos from the stay studio viewers. “I do wish to say that the parents at CBS have been nice companions,” he stated, including: “And naturally, I am grateful to you, the viewers, who’ve joined us each evening in right here, on the market, all all over the world.”Enable Google YouTube content material?This text comprises content material supplied by Google YouTube. We ask on your permission earlier than something is loaded, as they might be utilizing cookies and different applied sciences. You could wish to learn  and  earlier than accepting. To view this content material select ‘settle for and proceed’.Settle for and continueThe transfer brings a near the greater than three-decade previous programme, leaving the community and not using a late-night comedy speak present for the primary time since 1993. Colbert, who took over the CBS programme from David Letterman in 2015, has change into one in every of US President Donald Trump’s staunchest critics on late-night TV. The presenter was knowledgeable of the choice to cancel his present on Wednesday evening, he instructed the viewers throughout his Thursday monologue.”Yeah, I share your feeling,” he stated as the gang within the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York shouted “no” and booed.”It isn’t simply the top of our present, but it surely’s the top of The Late Present on CBS. I am not being changed. That is all simply going away,” he continued. “It’s a unbelievable job. I want anyone else was getting it.”The announcement comes two weeks after CBS dad or mum firm Paramount settled a lawsuit with Trump stemming from a CBS interview along with his 2024 election rival Kamala Harris.The Late Present was created by CBS, the BBC’s US information accomplice, in 1993 as a competitor to NBC’s personal speak present. It got here after a dispute between hosts David Letterman and Jay Leno over who ought to succeed Johnny Carson on the wildly-popular Tonight Present. Earlier than taking on the job at The Late Present, Colbert had been the host of “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central – a programme which skewered US conservative politics and tradition.The announcement of the ending of the programme got here amid talks between Paramount and Skydance Media to merge the 2 corporations, a transfer that may require approval from the US federal authorities.Democratic Senator Adam Schiff posted on X on Thursday that he had completed taping an interview with Colbert simply earlier than the cancellation was introduced.He questioned whether or not the announcement was tied to the $16m (£12m) settlement the community agreed to pay to Trump, writing: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Present for political causes, the general public deserved to know”. One other US senator, Elizabeth Warren, echoed these sentiments, posting on X: “America deserves to know if his present was cancelled for political causes.”The settlement got here after Trump sued CBS final October alleging the community had deceptively edited an interview that aired on its 60 Minutes information programme along with his presidential election rival Kamala Harris, to “tip the scales in favour of the Democratic social gathering”.Paramount stated it might pay to settle the go well with, however with the cash allotted to Trump’s future presidential library, not paid to him “immediately or not directly”.Getty ImagesUS President Barack Obama sat down for a number of interviews with Colbert over the yearsColbert has hosted many Democratic politicians throughout his tenure as host. Final month, he held a dialogue with Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist main the race to be New York Metropolis’s subsequent mayor.The choice to cancel the programme comes as networks wrestle to draw youthful viewers, amid competitors from on-line streamers and podcasts, together with elevated prices of stay tv.”We contemplate Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and can retire ‘The Late Present’ franchise,” CBS stated in its assertion.”We’re proud that Stephen referred to as CBS house. He and the published might be remembered within the pantheon of greats that graced late evening tv.”Rival broadcast networks, ABC and NBC, will proceed to air their late-night speak reveals. ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Stay! will proceed taping within the autumn, whereas NBC hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers have signed contracts to proceed internet hosting The Tonight Present and Late Evening till 2028, in line with The Hollywood Reporter.’The best’Reacting to the information of the top of Colbert’s present, Kimmel appeared to take intention on the community, posting on his Instagram story: “Love you Stephen. [Expletive] you and all of your Sheldons [a reference to the show Big Bang Theory] CBS.”Former Late Present band chief Jon Batiste described the outgoing speak present host as “the best to ever do it”.”My admiration and appreciation for you is bottomless,” wrote filmmaker Judd Apatow. “Excited to see what different brilliance you set into the world.””I’m extraordinarily unhappy. I like you, Stephen,” supplied Snow White actress Rachel Zegler.Severance star Adam Scott added: “Love you Stephen. That is absolute bull… and I for one am wanting ahead to the following 10 months of reveals.”Actor and director Ben Stiller posted on X that he was “sorry to listen to” CBS was “cancelling probably the greatest reveals they’ve”, including: “Wishing all of the individuals who work so laborious on that present all the perfect.”