Seth Meyers Torches CBS at Upfronts Over Colbert Cancellation

Seth Meyers walked into NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall on Monday morning and wasted absolutely no time going after CBS — and the president of the United States.

The Late Night host opened his roughly 10-minute comedy set with a joke that landed with unmistakable weight in the current media climate. “I’m Seth Meyers — or as the FCC calls me, ‘next,’” he said, a direct nod to FCC Chair Brendan Carr reposting Trump’s call to fire him on X. It got a laugh. It also made a point.

From there, Meyers pivoted to NBC’s big win: for the first time in over a decade, the network will claim the broadcast crown for total viewers in the 2025-2026 season, dethroning CBS. “After over a decade, we have taken down CBS,” he said. “Well, the Ellisons did, but I’d like to think we helped.”

And then the knives came out.

“Seriously, what’s going on over there? They’re so in the pocket for Trump that I heard next year, Survivor is in the Strait of Hormuz,” Meyers said to applause. He followed that with his sharpest line of the morning, riffing on the fact that Paramount skipped the traditional upfront presentation format this year — opting instead for smaller events across the country and intimate dinners with clients and talent. “CBS did not hold an upfront presentation this year because ‘CBS upfront’ just describes how they paid Trump to drop the lawsuit.”

The Colbert Backdrop Makes It Personal

The jokes hit harder given the context. Meyers is one of five late-night hosts — alongside David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver — set to appear during the final week of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert’s last episode airs May 21, exactly ten years after he made his debut on the CBS talk series. CBS confirmed the show’s cancellation just three days after Colbert called Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump over an edited 60 Minutes interview a “big, fat bribe.”

“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: it’s ‘big, fat bribe,’” Colbert said on air in July 2025. The network announced the cancellation shortly after, framing it as a retirement of the franchise along with its “irreplaceable” host.

Trump, for his part, addressed the situation on Truth Social, insisting the decision wasn’t entirely his doing. “Everybody is saying that I was solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert from CBS, Late Night. That is not true!” he wrote, before attributing the cancellation to what he called a “pure lack of TALENT” that was costing CBS $50 million a year in losses.

Meyers, of course, knows exactly where he stands in this picture. The FCC threat against him is real — Trump has spent months escalating his attacks on the Late Night host on Truth Social, at one point calling him “the least talented person” in television history and suggesting his anti-Trump commentary was “probably illegal.” That history made his “next” opener feel less like a throwaway gag and more like a statement.

He Spread the Roasts Around

Meyers didn’t limit his fire to CBS. He took aim at Netflix, noting the streamer had relocated its upfront event to Sunset Pier 94 on the Hudson River. “Netflix is hosting its upfronts at a pier on the Hudson River, because once a Netflix show hits two seasons, that’s where they dump its body.”

On the impending merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery — and the combined Paramount+/HBO Max streaming service it would produce — Meyers deadpanned: “So now you’ll get all your favorites in one place. Plus Paramount+!”

He also turned the lens on his own parent company, Comcast, joking about its failed bid for Warner Bros. Discovery: “Comcast actually made a bid too, but no one thought we were actually gonna get it. It was kind of like that one friend who always pretends to reach for his wallet after the check comes. ‘No, no, Comcast, you can get it next time.’”

On Peacock’s slow march toward profitability: “Comcast said on its most recent earnings call that Peacock is approaching profitability in the same way Kevin Hart is approaching seven feet tall.”

He also celebrated NBCUniversal’s poaching of Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan from Paramount in a reported $1 billion deal, joking that it means he’ll “finally get a call from my dad asking, ‘What channel is NBC on?’” And he closed on one final dig at his Eye Network rivals: “NBC is turning 100 years old this year. Which means right now, it’s watching CBS.”

Meyers will be back in front of a CBS camera soon enough — appearing alongside his fellow late-night peers to send Colbert off in style. Whatever gets said on that stage on May 21, you can bet it won’t be subdued.