NEW YORK: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, one of the most-watched late-night programmes on US broadcast television and a frequent platform of satire aimed at the US President Donald Trump, will end its 10-year run on CBS in May 2026, the network said.

The show will be retired, and Colbert will not be replaced. New episodes will air until the end of the broadcast TV season in May 2026, a network statement said.

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in the late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” CBS executives said in the statement.

Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, is seeking approval from the US Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.

This month, Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with his former Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, that CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast in October.

Colbert told his audience on Thursday that he was informed of his show’s cancellation the night before. The audience booed, and Colbert responded: “Yeah, I share your feelings.”

“I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” the 61-year-old comedian said.

The Late Show debuted in 1993 with David Letterman as host after he was passed over for NBC’s The Tonight Show. Colbert, a regular on The Daily Show before he hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, took over The Late Show in 2015.

“It is a fantastic job,” Colbert said on Thursday.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2025