• CBS issued a statement Thursday publicly defending its cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for the first time, disclosing that the show lost approximately $40 million a year — and that Byron Allen’s replacement arrangement will swing the timeslot to a $15 million annual profit
• Allen is operating under a “time buy” model: he pays CBS $15 million per year to lease the 11:30 PM hour and sells his own ad inventory; his show Comics Unleashed premiered May 22, the night after Colbert’s series finale
• Colbert’s finale on May 21 drew 6.7 million viewers — the show’s most-watched weeknight episode in its history; Comics Unleashed debuted to approximately 995,000 total viewers and 116,000 in the 18–49 demo
• CBS has faced weeks of speculation that the cancellation was politically motivated; the network’s statement called the move a response to a “cost prohibitive” business model rather than a political decision

CBS broke its silence Thursday on one of the more controversial decisions in late-night television in years: the cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. For the first time, the network put numbers to the story. The Late Show was losing roughly $40 million a year, CBS said — a figure that had been widely circulated but never confirmed. Under the new arrangement, Byron Allen leases the 11:30 PM timeslot from CBS for $15 million annually and sells his own advertising, flipping the math from a $40 million annual loss to a projected $15 million profit, per Deadline.

“We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost prohibitive to continue,” CBS said in its statement. The network has been under pressure since the cancellation was announced, with critics and commentators questioning whether politics played a role in ousting Colbert, whose show had a distinctly liberal sensibility. CBS did not address the political speculation directly, framing the move purely as a financial one, per Variety.

The Numbers After Colbert

The scale of the audience drop is hard to ignore. Colbert’s May 21 series finale drew 6.7 million viewers — the most-watched weeknight episode in the show’s history. Comics Unleashed, which premiered the following night on May 22, opened to approximately 995,000 total viewers and 116,000 in the 18–49 demo, according to LateNighter citing initial Nielsen Live+Same Day panel data, per TV Insider. Allen has been direct about not trying to recapture Colbert’s audience — he told outlets he has no interest in political humor and is building something different.

Allen, 65, is a Detroit-born billionaire who started his career in stand-up comedy and built a media empire over decades. His Comics Unleashed has been a syndicated panel comedy format for years, and the CBS slot gives it a prime broadcast home. Whether that audience finds him is a question the next few weeks of ratings data will start to answer, per The Hollywood Reporter.

The post CBS Says the Late Show Was Losing $40 Million a Year — Now Byron Allen’s Time Buy Will Turn a $15M Profit appeared first on Cream.

• Stephen Colbert launched a YouTube channel days after the final episode of The Late Show
• His first upload was his appearance on “Only in Monroe,” a Michigan public access show he famously hosted in 2015
• The episode featured surprise appearances by Eminem, Jack White, Jeff Daniels, and Steve Buscemi
• CBS issued copyright takedown notices against fans uploading clips — then reversed course after backlash
• Veteran TV reporter Bill Carter claimed Trump was “personally involved” in getting the Late Show canceled

It took Stephen Colbert exactly 23 hours without a TV show to find a new one. It just happened to be in Monroe, Michigan.

The day after the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired on CBS, the former late-night host showed up on “Only in Monroe,” a public access show on Monroe Community Media. It was a callback — Colbert famously launched The Late Show from the same tiny program back in 2015 as a goof. This time, the joke had a sharper edge.

“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV, so I am grateful to be able to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount,” Colbert joked during the taping.

The episode was stacked. Jack White and Jeff Daniels showed up. Eminem made an appearance. Steve Buscemi — in a move that felt almost too perfect — did an ad for a local establishment actually called “Buscemi’s Pizza and Subs.” And Byron Allen, who bought Colbert’s old CBS timeslots, was there too.

Then Colbert put it all on YouTube.

CBS Came for the Clips

Over the weekend, the episode went viral. Fans started uploading bootlegged copies across YouTube. And then, in a move that managed to be both predictable and tone-deaf, Paramount’s CBS started issuing DMCA takedown notices to yank the clips.

The internet did not take it well. Critics accused CBS of censorship — pulling down content featuring a host they’d just let go. The backlash was swift enough that CBS reversed course within days.

A CBS representative told Variety: “Stephen Colbert’s return to Monroe in the ‘Only in Monroe’ episode was financed and produced by CBS Studios.” The takedown notices were apparently issued as part of standard content protection, then pulled back as the decision underwent “a more thorough review.”

Colbert’s own YouTube channel now hosts the episode directly.

The Trump of It All

The copyright dust-up arrived alongside a separate, more charged conversation about why the Late Show ended in the first place. Veteran TV reporter Bill Carter — who wrote The Late Shift, the definitive book on the Leno-Letterman wars — claimed on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that President Trump was “personally involved” in having the show canceled.

Carter pointed to an AI-generated video posted on Trump’s official X account after the finale, which depicted Trump grabbing Colbert and throwing him into a dumpster before dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”

“The government was pushing to get rid of this man because he was a critic,” Carter said. “That is so alien to our values that I think most Americans know this is not something we do. We don’t shut people up.”

Trump and Colbert’s feud has been a running thread since 2016. Whether it was a factor in the show’s end depends on who you ask — but the AI dumpster video, posted from an official presidential account, did not exactly suggest indifference.

Colbert, for his part, seems unbothered. He has a YouTube channel now. And Monroe has a new favorite son.

The post Colbert Launches YouTube Channel as CBS Copyright Drama Unfolds appeared first on Cream.

• Stephen Colbert hosted the final episode of The Late Show on May 21, ending CBS’s 33-year late-night franchise
• Paul McCartney was the surprise final guest, closing the show by literally turning off the lights at the Ed Sullivan Theater
• Jon Stewart, Strike Force Five, Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds and others made cameo appearances throughout the night
• CBS canceled the top-rated late-night show amid its parent company Paramount’s pending acquisition by a Trump donor’s son
• Colbert’s next move is writing a screenplay for a Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film

“We call this show The Joy Machine,” Stephen Colbert said in the opening seconds of his final episode. “Because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine. But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.”

On Thursday night, after 11 years and roughly 1,800 episodes, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired for the last time. CBS’s decision to cancel the top-rated show in its time slot — a move widely linked to the network’s parent company Paramount navigating a politically charged acquisition — left Colbert, his staff, and millions of viewers with nearly 10 months to brace for an ending nobody really felt ready for. And yet, when the night came, Colbert put on exactly the kind of show he always put on. That was, entirely and deliberately, the point.

A Regular Show, With a Few Interruptions

Colbert opened by insisting he wanted to do a regular episode — not something big and ceremonial — because every episode of The Late Show had always been special to him. The universe, and a parade of famous friends, had other ideas.

Bryan Cranston was the first celebrity in the audience to volunteer himself as Colbert’s final guest, and the first to be politely turned down. Paul Rudd arrived next, bearing five bananas as what he called a “customary” retirement gift — a gag that got a callback when Ryan Reynolds presented the same offering to bandleader Corey Bernhard. Tim Meadows invoked his decades-long friendship with Colbert in hopes of landing the coveted guest chair, while Tig Notaro seemed genuinely unaware there was even a reason to want it. “It’s your last show?” she deadpanned.

In between interruptions, Colbert played it completely straight. He rattled off jokes about the day’s headlines, delivered one last “First Draft” segment, and dropped a piece of Ed Sullivan Theater trivia that landed perfectly: “Backstage, Elvis used the bathroom and didn’t die.” He ran a “Meanwhile” segment that was, characteristically, both verbose and unhinged — a ship-themed declaration of love for his staff and crew that somehow also included a Peanuts copyright lawsuit. When the band noodled a melody that sounded suspiciously like Vince Guaraldi’s iconic theme, Colbert looked at the camera and said, “Oh no! I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money!” It was a genuinely funny troll of his soon-to-be former employer, and one of the night’s most satisfying moments.

Paul McCartney, a Signed Photo, and the Beginning of the End

The final guest had been teased as a major surprise, though The Late Show‘s own social team somewhat undermined the reveal by announcing it before the broadcast began. Still, Paul McCartney sitting down at the Ed Sullivan Theater — the same stage where the Beatles made American history in 1964 — carried genuine weight.

McCartney brought a gift: a signed photograph of that legendary Beatles performance. The inscription, Colbert jokingly claimed, read “Colbert is better than The Beatles.” Before they got into conversation, McCartney reflected on what America meant to him when he first arrived. “The land of the free, the greatest democracy, that is what it was,” he said. “And still is, hopefully.” On the subject of his iPhone: “I hate cookies. I bought you. I don’t want you to change.” Even when Colbert asked about McCartney’s earliest memories of music — questions the man has surely fielded a thousand times — there was something genuinely warm about the exchange. Colbert’s interviews were always like this: personal, unhurried, and entirely his own.

McCartney would stay until the very last moment of the night.

The Wormhole, Jon Stewart, and Strike Force Five

Throughout the episode, a strange green glow and an intermittent hum had been appearing behind Colbert’s desk. Eventually, he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He threw to commercial, walked backstage, and discovered an inter-dimensional wormhole — brought on, as Neil deGrasse Tyson explained before being immediately swallowed by it, by two contradictory realities existing simultaneously: The Late Show is the No. 1 rated show in late night, and The Late Show is also canceled.

Jon Stewart appeared next, “on behalf of Paramount,” to push his friend toward the future. “The hole’s here, you can’t ignore it,” Stewart told him. “The only choice you have now is how you choose to walk through it.” Then came Strike Force Five — Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon — with their own words of encouragement, before the wormhole broke containment and started pulling in the audience.

It was peak Late Show: big, silly, and sneakily sincere all at once.

Hello, Goodbye

When Colbert returned from a real commercial break, he was in an empty void — a single light bulb, a chair, and the quiet. Then Elvis Costello began singing “Jump Up,” joined by former Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste and current leader Louis Cato. It felt, for a moment, like the show might end there — without its signature live musical closing number.

Then the lights came back on. McCartney, Costello, Cato, Batiste, and Colbert stood in front of the live studio audience and sang “Hello, Goodbye” — which also happened to be the episode’s title. Colbert’s family, guests, and crew flooded the stage in a moment reminiscent of the Colbert Report finale. Before they could finish, the pre-taped sketch resumed: Colbert stood in the theater’s basement, the voices still singing above him, and let McCartney pull the lever to shut down the Joy Machine.

The wormhole swallowed the building whole. A snow globe appeared. Colbert’s dog Benny sniffed it, then was ushered along. And that was that.

What’s Actually Being Lost

The circumstances of the cancellation have hung over the show’s final weeks like a storm cloud. Paramount is in the process of being acquired by Skydance Media, led by David Ellison — son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, a prominent Trump donor. The deal required federal regulatory approval. Colbert had been among the most consistent — if not always the sharpest — critics of the Trump administration on television. When the cancellation was announced, Trump rushed to Truth Social to gloat: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” Paramount maintained the decision was purely financial. On the show’s penultimate episode, Bruce Springsteen called Colbert “the first guy in America who lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke,” and named Ellison and his father from the stage.

Colbert, for his part, largely let others carry that fight. He didn’t go out guns blazing. He didn’t spend his finale burning down the house. He did what he always did: he put on a good show.

That choice — to resist the pull of the dramatic exit in favor of one more night that looked and felt like the previous 1,800 — is actually the most revealing thing about who Stephen Colbert is. His greatest asset was never his political sharpness, or his celebrity rapport, or even his comedy chops, impressive as all of those were. It was his sincerity. He was the host people went to when they wanted to talk about grief. Nick Cave opened up about losing two sons. Andrew Garfield wept over his mother’s death. Dua Lipa turned the tables and asked Colbert about his Catholic faith. He’d been open for years about the plane crash that killed his father and two brothers when he was 10 years old, and how he eventually came to “love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” His guests knew he would meet their pain with understanding, not a hunt for a revealing quote.

When the Los Angeles Times assembled a list of his most memorable moments, the first four fell under the heading “Emotional conversations about grief and faith.” Imagine trying to do that for almost any other host.

The day the show ended was also the last day of CBS News Radio, shuttered after nearly a century on the air. The Ed Sullivan Theater goes dark. A 33-year franchise is over. Colbert’s next chapter, at least, sounds like him: he’s writing a screenplay for a Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film — a fitting escape, as one observer put it, for TV’s chief Tolkien nerd. He even closed his finale with a nod to Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” a poem he once convinced Helen Mirren to read to him on air.

“We love doing the show for you,” he said early in the evening. “But what we really, really love is doing the show with you.”

He meant it. He always meant it. That’s exactly what we’ll miss.

The post Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Finale: A Perfect Goodbye appeared first on Cream.

• Robert De Niro and Bruce Springsteen both took shots at Trump during Colbert’s penultimate Late Show episode on Wednesday
• De Niro quipped about 2.5 million unreleased Epstein files; Springsteen called out Paramount’s Ellison family by name
• The White House responded Thursday, calling Colbert a “pathetic trainwreck with no talent”
• More than a dozen celebrities appeared on the episode, including Billy Crystal, Martha Stewart, and Ben Stiller
• Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21 on CBS

Stephen Colbert’s second-to-last Late Show was always going to be a party — but Robert De Niro and Bruce Springsteen made sure it had a little bite too.

Wednesday night’s episode brought out more than a dozen celebrity guests as part of a flipped version of Colbert’s signature “Colbert Questionert” segment, where the host usually grills his famous guests with a series of quirky questions. This time, Colbert took the guest sofa while his friends took turns asking him the questions. Billy Crystal, Mark Hamill, Martha Stewart, Josh Brolin, Jim Gaffigan, Jeff Daniels, Tiffany Haddish, Amy Sedaris, Ben Stiller, Aubrey Plaza, Weird Al Yankovic, James Taylor, John Dickerson, and Colbert’s wife Evie McGee Colbert all showed up. It was the kind of send-off that reminded you just how many people this show has touched over the years.

Then came De Niro.

The 82-year-old Oscar winner sat down and asked Colbert, “What number were you thinking of?” — a standard Questionert prompt. Colbert gave a characteristically long-winded answer, explaining that only two guests had ever correctly guessed the number three: Meryl Streep and Ethan Hawke. De Niro deadpanned, “OK” — then delivered the punchline.

“Because I thought it would have been two million point five, or two and a half million. That’s the number of Epstein files Trump still hasn’t released.”

Colbert threw his head back laughing. The audience erupted. The clip was everywhere by morning.

Springsteen Closes the Show — and Calls Out the Ellisons

If De Niro drew blood, Bruce Springsteen went for the jugular. The Boss closed the show with a performance of “Streets of Minneapolis,” his 2026 protest song — but not before saying his piece to the audience first.

“I am here tonight in support for Stephen because you’re the first guy in America who’s lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke,” the 76-year-old told the crowd.

He didn’t stop there. “And because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want,” Springsteen said, directly calling out Paramount CEO David Ellison and his father Larry by name. “Stephen, these are small-minded people… they got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about.”

CBS has maintained that canceling The Late Show — announced back in July 2025 — was purely a financial decision, citing the show’s reported $40 million annual loss. But Springsteen’s comments reflect what a lot of people in the industry have been saying quietly: that the politics were never far from the equation.

Trump, for his part, made no secret of his delight when the cancellation was announced. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” he wrote on Truth Social at the time. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”

The White House Responds

The administration didn’t let Wednesday night pass without comment. A White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday: “Stephen Colbert is a pathetic trainwreck with no talent and terrible ratings, which is exactly why CBS canceled his show and is booting him off the airwaves.”

It’s not the first time Trump has gone after Springsteen specifically. Back in April, he posted that the “Thunder Road” singer was “Bad, and very boring,” adding that he looks like a “dried up prune” with “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — and urging his supporters to boycott Springsteen’s concerts, which he called “overpriced” and said “suck.”

Online reactions split predictably. “This is an absolute mic drop right there for the Late Show, and god, it’s hard to believe that all of this will end tomorrow,” one person wrote in the YouTube comments on Springsteen’s performance. “Mad respect to the Boss, a much better man than the one sitting in the oval office,” added another. On the other side, X users called Springsteen a “washed up musician” and argued that Colbert lost his show because “nobody was watching, revenues were tanking, and he was simply un-funny.”

For Colbert, though, the noise may not be the point. In an interview with People published Tuesday, the 62-year-old host reflected on what he’s always hoped the show meant to viewers. “I hope they laughed. I hope they felt better at the end of the day,” he said. “We’re the last thing you see. A lot of things happen in a day, but we bat last, and so we get the last take that people hear before they go to bed, and I hope it made their day better.”

His final episode airs Thursday night on CBS. He’s promised the sendoff will be “something simple.”

The post De Niro, Springsteen Hit Trump at Colbert’s Farewell appeared first on Cream.

• Bruce Springsteen performed at Stephen Colbert’s second-to-last Late Show on May 20, calling out Trump and Paramount’s Ellison family
• The Boss said Colbert lost his show because Trump “can’t take a joke” and the Ellisons needed to “kiss his ass” to get what they want
• Springsteen performed his protest song “Streets of Minneapolis,” written after two people were killed during an ICE operation in Minnesota
• Jimmy Kimmel also took shots at Paramount leadership and urged his viewers to watch Colbert’s finale — then “never watch CBS again”
• The Late Show’s series finale aired May 21, ending Colbert’s nearly 11-year run on CBS

Bruce Springsteen didn’t hold back. Showing up for the penultimate episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night, The Boss used his moment in the spotlight to say exactly what a lot of people have been thinking — and he said it with names attached.

“I am here in support tonight for Stephen, because you’re the first guy in America who’s lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke,” Springsteen told the audience before launching into his performance. “And because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want. Anyway, Stephen, these are small-minded people. They got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about. This is for you.”

From there, Springsteen — alone onstage with an acoustic guitar and harmonica — performed “Streets of Minneapolis,” the protest song he released this past January following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good during an immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota. As he played, projections of the words “RESISTANCE,” “TRUTH,” and “HOPE” appeared behind him. It was the kind of moment that felt less like a television appearance and more like a statement.

Why the Cancellation Has Never Quite Added Up

CBS has maintained that the decision to cancel The Late Show was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” — not related to the show’s content or performance. But the timing has raised eyebrows since the moment it was announced last summer. The cancellation came just as Paramount Global was finalizing its merger with Skydance Media, a deal that required Trump administration approval. David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, founded Skydance and now serves as CEO of Paramount Skydance. Both Ellisons have been vocal Trump supporters.

The move also landed not long after Colbert went on air and called Paramount’s $16 million settlement of Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CBS — over a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris — a “big fat bribe.” Days later, the cancellation was announced.

Colbert himself has been careful heading into his final week, choosing his words deliberately. He told The New York Times that he understood why people found it suspicious: “The network did it to themselves by bending the knee to the Trump administration over a $20 billion, settled for $16 million, completely frivolous lawsuit.” And he told The Hollywood Reporter that two things can be true at once — “It can be that the broadcast model is collapsing, and, while we’re at it, as long as we’re collapsing here, what if we shove this one out a window first? I mean, this lamb’s got a very cuttable throat.”

Trump, for his part, has been openly gleeful about the whole thing. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” he posted on Truth Social last July. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!” When asked about Colbert’s final show on Wednesday, Trump told reporters he’d “have a message on a later date.”

Late Night Rallies Around Colbert

Springsteen wasn’t the only one making his feelings known. Over on ABC, Jimmy Kimmel opened his Wednesday show with a tribute to his friend and fellow host — and didn’t spare Paramount’s leadership either.

“I think you know how I feel about the fact that they’re being pushed out,” Kimmel said. “I hope the people who did the pushing feel ashamed of themselves tonight, although I know they probably won’t.” He praised Colbert’s team for their years of work and said he had no doubt they’d continue doing great things “in other venues.”

Then Kimmel ended with something that landed: “I will be watching tomorrow night. I hope that those of you who watch our show will also tune in to CBS for the last time. Don’t ever watch it again, but watch tomorrow night to wish Stephen and our friends at The Late Show a fond farewell.”

David Letterman has also weighed in previously, calling CBS brass “lying weasels” over the financial explanation for the cancellation.

One Last Night Before the Finale

Wednesday’s episode was packed. Before Springsteen closed things out, much of the night was devoted to Colbert sitting in the guest chair for an extended version of his own “Colbert Questionert” segment — the rapid-fire questionnaire he’s put to hundreds of guests over the years. This time, the guests came to him: Billy Crystal, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Josh Brolin, Martha Stewart, Mark Hamill, Jim Gaffigan, Jeff Daniels, Tiffany Haddish, Amy Sedaris, Ben Stiller, Aubrey Plaza, James Taylor, Robert De Niro, John Dickerson, and finally Colbert’s wife, Evie McGee Colbert.

The last question put to him: describe the rest of your life in five words. His answer was simple and warm. “My family, my friends, fun.”

The episode also followed Tuesday night’s Late Show, which featured a performance from David Byrne — another heavy-hitter for a show going out swinging.

Springsteen’s appearance fits squarely into the spirit of his current “NO KINGS” Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour, which has centered on resistance to the current administration and recently wrapped a three-night run in New York City.

The series finale of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert aired May 21 on CBS — ending nearly 11 years of late night television. No guests for the final episode were announced in advance. Whatever happened, Springsteen gave it a proper send-off the night before.

The post Springsteen Blasts Trump and Ellisons at Colbert’s Second-to-Last Show appeared first on Cream.

• Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed takes over Stephen Colbert’s 11:35 p.m. CBS time slot starting Friday, May 22
• Allen is paying CBS for the time slot and handling all ad sales himself, saving the network an estimated $150–$170 million annually
• He specifically chose May 22 to honor his hero Johnny Carson, whose final Tonight Show aired exactly 34 years earlier
• Allen promises zero politics — \”You come, you laugh\” — in a deliberate departure from Colbert’s format
• The deal is part of a sweeping media expansion that also includes a controlling stake in BuzzFeed and ambitions to acquire Starz

\n\n

When CBS announced it was canceling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Byron Allen didn’t mourn. He picked up the phone.

\n\n

\”I said, ‘OK, do you like money?’\” Allen recalled this week. \”They said, ‘Yes!’\”

\n\n

Starting Friday, May 22, Allen’s long-running syndicated comedy series Comics Unleashed takes over the 11:35 p.m. ET slot on CBS — one of the most storied windows in American television — with back-to-back half-hour episodes. That’s followed by two more half-hours of his comedy game show Funny You Should Ask, hosted by Jon Kelley, running through 1:37 a.m. Both shows will also be available to Paramount+ Premium subscribers through their local CBS affiliate feed.

\n\n

Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21. By Friday night, the era is over — and Allen’s begins.

\n\n

The Deal That Saved CBS $150 Million

\n\n

The math behind this arrangement is striking. Under the deal, Allen leases the two-hour block from CBS and sells all the advertising inventory himself. He wouldn’t disclose exactly what he’s paying the network, but he was direct about what CBS is getting out of it: relief from a massive financial burden.

\n\n

\”Between the two time periods, they’re saving approximately $150 million-plus per year, just on production and marketing,\” Allen explained. \”And that does not include what I’m paying for the time slot. So it’s a great deal for CBS.\”

\n\n

CBS had been spending roughly that amount producing both The Late Show and the show that followed it, Taylor Tomlinson’s After Midnight. When the network decided to cancel both, Allen’s pitch was essentially: don’t replace them with anything. Let me take it off your hands entirely.

\n\n

\”I said, ‘Save your money. I will put my show Comics Unleashed on,’\” he told CBS Mornings this week. \”They said, ‘This is a great idea, you’re going to save us $150 to $170 million.’\”

\n\n

He put it more colorfully in another interview: \”I am a gift from the money gods and the comedy gods.\”

\n\n

The context matters here. Broadcast networks are under serious financial strain — sports rights are expensive, and advertising dollars are migrating fast from linear TV to digital. Allen knows this firsthand. Through Allen Media Group, he has invested roughly a billion dollars acquiring ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates across 11 U.S. markets, plus the Weather Channel and other properties. He’s watched the economics shift in real time. CBS’s late-night costs had become, in his view, an unnecessary burden in a landscape that no longer justified them.

\n\n

\”No Politics. You Come, You Laugh.\”

\n\n

The tonal shift from Colbert to Allen is going to be significant — and Allen is leaning into it.

\n\n

When CBS Mornings co-host Adriana Diaz asked him directly whether Comics Unleashed would get political, Allen didn’t hesitate: \”No, no, no, no politics. That’s it. You come, you laugh.\”

\n\n

He added: \”I want to bring people together using comedy. I’m going to appeal to all.\” The show, he said, has featured more than a thousand comedians across twenty years — \”every shape and size, you name it\” — and the format stays squarely focused on funny. \”We’re doing a show with nothing political, racist, sexist or homophobic… just clean comedy,\” he told Variety.

\n\n

That’s a pointed contrast to Colbert’s Late Show, which became one of late-night’s most politically charged programs. The show’s cancellation came just days after Colbert publicly criticized CBS parent company Paramount for its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump — a decision that landed while Paramount was in the middle of a merger with Skydance Media requiring Trump administration approval. CBS called the cancellation \”purely a financial decision,\” but the timing drew intense scrutiny, and figures like David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel were vocal in their criticism of the network.

\n\n

Allen has been careful to thread the needle. He and Colbert are friends, and he made that clear. \”I think it was a very unfortunate event,\” he said on CBS Mornings. \”I love Stephen Colbert. I’m a big fan. Once they made the decision, I said, ‘OK, this isn’t show business, this is business show.’ I absolutely love Colbert, and I would do anything — he doesn’t need me — but I would do anything to support him.\”

\n\n

In a separate interview, he went further: \”I really like Stephen Colbert. I think he is a magnificent human being. He’s a super talent. I believe he is an American treasure.\”

\n\n

Even Letterman, who was critical of CBS’s decision, offered something close to a grudging endorsement of Allen’s format. On The Barbara Gaines Show in April, he said: \”The show is a pretty good idea. It’s all panel. Nobody’s doing any stand-up except they’re seated doing stand-up.\”

\n\n

The Night He Watched Johnny Carson and Decided Everything

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Here’s what makes Allen’s May 22 launch date more than just a scheduling choice.

\n\n

CBS had originally wanted him to premiere on September 21. Allen said no. He pushed for May 22 specifically because it marks the 34th anniversary of Johnny Carson’s final night hosting The Tonight Show — May 22, 1992.

\n\n

\”What people don’t realize is that was my hero Johnny Carson’s last night,\” Allen said. \”Normally, you would premiere in September, but I said, ‘No, no, no, no. That’s when Johnny stepped down. That’s when I’m stepping up.’\”

\n\n

That connection to Carson runs deep — and it starts in childhood. Allen’s mother, who had him when she was just 17, worked at NBC and couldn’t afford childcare. So she brought young Byron to the lot in Burbank, where he’d wait for her to finish her shift while watching Carson tape his show.

\n\n

\”I’ve said to myself, what a wonderful way to go through life, making people laugh,\” Allen recalled.

\n\n

In 1979, the circle started to close. Allen got to perform stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, becoming the youngest comedian ever to appear on the program. He was a teenager.

\n\n

\”I was thinking to myself, in the next five minutes I’m going to change my life and my mother’s life forever,\” he said. \”So I’m going to go out there and have a great time, and after I make these people laugh, we’re never going to worry about a bowl of cereal again.\”

\n\n

Now, nearly five decades later, he’s inherited the slot Carson helped define. He said he plans to open that first episode on Friday with a moment of acknowledgment: \”I will take a minute to share some thoughts about late night and what we’re doing.\”

\n\n

\”It makes me feel great, because at the end of the day, all I want to do is make my mama proud, no matter how rich I get,\” Allen said. \”I’m just still a little scared little boy hanging on to my mother’s leg.\”

\n\n

The Bigger Empire Allen Is Building

\n\n

The CBS deal is just one piece of a much larger expansion Allen is engineering right now.

\n\n

Last week, he acquired a 52% controlling stake in BuzzFeed — paying $20 million in cash upfront plus $100 million in a promissory note due in five years. When the deal closes, expected by the end of May, Allen becomes BuzzFeed’s chairman and CEO, with co-founder Jonah Peretti moving to a president of BuzzFeed AI role. BuzzFeed, once valued at $1.7 billion, had recently warned investors it had \”substantial doubt\” about its ability to continue as a going concern, posting a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025 on revenue of $185.3 million.

\n\n

Allen’s plan is to turn BuzzFeed and HuffPost into streaming brands, anchored by his Weather Channel-owned Local Now platform, which ingests roughly 500,000 pieces of video per day and provides hyper-localized news, weather, sports, and traffic content. He wants user-generated content, revenue-sharing with creators, and no paywalls.

\n\n

\”We are chasing YouTube,\” he said plainly. \”The two best words in media: ‘free’ and ‘streaming.’ Bring it together and, poof, you’ve got something magical.\”

\n\n

He was characteristically blunt about why the BuzzFeed deal made sense: \”It was definitely a distressed sale — without a doubt. They told the world they were about to run out of money! When a company is lying on its back, you can’t fall off the floor.\”

\n\n

Then there’s Starz. In March, Allen’s investment arm acquired a 10.7% stake in the premium cable network for $25 million — making him the second-largest stockholder. Starz responded almost immediately by adopting a “poison pill” shareholder rights plan, which allows existing investors to buy shares at a 50% discount if any single investor crosses 17.5% ownership — a move widely understood as a defense against Allen.

\n\n

He’s not deterred. \”The poison pill, that was a stupid move. They didn’t need to do that,\” he said. \”When I decide to buy them, I will do a lot more than what they’re doing now — I can make Starz infinitely bigger.\”

\n\n

Allen has a history of ambitious media bids that didn’t close — a $30 billion play for Paramount Global, a $3.5 billion offer for BET, a run at TV station operator Tegna, and a reported interest in the NFL’s Washington Commanders. But at 65, with a CBS time slot, a BuzzFeed acquisition, and a Starz stake on the books, he’s building something that looks increasingly like a real empire — one comedy block at a time.

\n\n

Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen premieres Friday, May 22, at 11:35 p.m. ET on CBS.

“,
“category”: “TV

The post Byron Allen Takes Colbert’s CBS Slot — And It’s Personal appeared first on Cream.

• John Oliver used the final seconds of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight to praise Stephen Colbert and take a shot at CBS.
• Oliver’s send-off — “He’s the f*cking best” — echoed David Letterman’s profane dig at CBS executives from the week before.
• Letterman had appeared on The Late Show to throw CBS furniture off the Ed Sullivan Theater roof alongside Colbert.
• The Late Show’s cancellation has been tied to Paramount’s merger with Skydance and Colbert’s criticism of the network.
• Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21, with no successor planned.

John Oliver doesn’t do sentimental very often. But with Stephen Colbert’s final Late Show just days away, he made an exception — and he made it count.

In the closing moments of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver stepped away from the episode’s main segment on factoring companies and structured settlements to deliver a message to his audience. “We’re off next week — back on May 31 — please enjoy Colbert’s final shows,” he said. Then, with zero hesitation: “He’s the f*cking best.”

He signed off with: “Good night, and good luck, motherf*ckers.”

It landed like a perfectly thrown punch — and it wasn’t accidental. The line was a deliberate echo of what David Letterman had said on The Late Show just days earlier, when he appeared alongside Colbert and offered his own spin on legendary broadcaster Ed Murrow’s classic farewell. Letterman’s version, directed pointedly at “the folks at CBS,” was identical: “Good night and good luck, motherf*ckers.”

The phrase has become an unofficial rallying cry for everyone who thinks CBS’s decision to cancel Colbert’s show stinks — and there are a lot of them.

Letterman, a Rooftop, and a CBS Logo Getting Destroyed

Before Oliver’s tribute, Letterman had already delivered one of the more cathartic moments in late-night history. CBS had long prohibited Colbert from doing one of Letterman’s signature bits — tossing items off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, the show’s home since 1993. So Colbert invited Letterman back to do it himself, and the two of them climbed to the roof to hurl lounge chairs, a desk chair, and a handful of watermelons down at a CBS logo mockup sitting on the street below.

“I enjoy destroying stuff. It’s great, great fun. Thank you for everything you’ve done for our country,” Letterman told Colbert after they’d finished.

Before they took to the roof, Letterman got emotional — and a little defiant — surveying the studio Colbert had transformed over the past decade. “I have every right to be pissed off, so I’ll be pissed off here a little bit,” he said. “Because this theater, you folks wouldn’t be in this theater if it weren’t for me, and Stephen wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. And we rebuilt this theater, and then Stephen came in, and look at this? It’s like the Bellagio.”

When Colbert confirmed that everything they were about to destroy belonged to “the Paramount CBS Corporation,” Letterman smiled: “Yeah, this is nice. It’d be a shame if something happened to this.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eBKWKu2Rqxc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The Cancellation Nobody’s Forgotten

CBS announced last July that it was ending The Late Show, citing financial reasons — specifically that the show’s viewership wasn’t profitable enough to sustain. There will be no successor. The show simply ends Thursday, May 21, after more than three decades at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

But the circumstances of the cancellation have never sat right with a lot of people. The announcement came after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount’s $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump — a deal the company finalized while seeking federal approval for its merger with Skydance. The timing led to widespread speculation that Colbert’s outspoken anti-Trump commentary made him a liability the network couldn’t afford to keep around while the merger was in play. Letterman has been one of the most vocal in leaning into that theory.

Oliver’s own network, HBO, sits under Warner Bros. Discovery, which is itself moving toward a merger with Paramount — which gives his pointed CBS dig a slightly complicated corporate backdrop. But Oliver has never been one to let that kind of thing stop him.

Twenty-Plus Years of Friendship

The bond between Oliver and Colbert goes back more than two decades, to when both worked under Jon Stewart at The Daily Show. Since Colbert took over The Late Show in 2015, Oliver has shown up more than almost anyone else — 23 official appearances, according to Late Nighter, not counting cameos and ensemble bits. That’s not a casual professional relationship. That’s a friendship.

Which is why Sunday’s sign-off hit differently than a standard industry tribute. Oliver didn’t write a think piece or give a long speech. He just looked at the camera, said what he meant, and let it land.

“He’s the f*cking best.”

The finale airs Thursday. Don’t miss it.

The post John Oliver’s R-Rated Salute to Stephen Colbert appeared first on Cream.

• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends its 11-season run on CBS on Thursday, May 21, 2026
• Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne, and Bruce Springsteen headline the final week
• The series finale guest lineup has not yet been announced — CBS is saving surprises
• Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel will air reruns on May 21 to clear the way for Colbert’s finale
• The show was canceled last year amid Paramount’s merger with Skydance in what CBS called “purely a financial decision”

Stephen Colbert is going out with a bang. With just one week left before The Late Show signs off for good on May 21, CBS has revealed the star-studded guest lineup that will close out 11 seasons of one of late night’s most celebrated runs — and it’s exactly the kind of send-off the moment deserves.

Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne, and Bruce Springsteen are all confirmed for the final week. The series finale itself? Still under wraps — and CBS seems very intentional about keeping it that way.

Here’s how the week breaks down: Monday, May 18 kicks things off with “The Worst of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” — which the network is at pains to clarify is “not a clip show.” Tuesday, May 19 brings Jon Stewart back into Colbert’s orbit, alongside a sit-down with director Steven Spielberg (whose new film Disclosure Day hits theaters in June) and a special musical performance featuring David Byrne and Colbert performing together. Wednesday, May 20 flips the script entirely: Colbert will answer his own famous “Colbert Questionert” for the first time, with unnamed special guests doing the asking, and Bruce Springsteen closing out the night with a performance. Thursday, May 21 is the finale — and beyond confirming the date, CBS isn’t saying a word about who’ll be there.

A Farewell Tour Months in the Making

The final week is the culmination of a farewell run that’s felt more like a celebration than a goodbye. In recent weeks, Oprah Winfrey and former President Barack Obama both stopped by. Tom Hanks told Colbert he isn’t sure “how the entertainment industrial complex is going to survive without you.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus snapped back into character as Selina Meyer — with jokes written by former Veep writers — and delivered a roast-style farewell that was pure chaos in the best way.

David Letterman, who handed Colbert the keys to the Ed Sullivan Theater back in 2015, returned to gleefully hurl set furniture off the roof alongside his successor. And on May 11, Colbert reunited with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver — the group known collectively as Strike Force Five — for an extended on-air conversation. When Colbert asked near the end if there was anything else to cover, Kimmel didn’t miss a beat: “The outrage that your show is being thrown off the air?” He called it a “tragedy.” Fallon called it a “bummer because I wanted to do this longer with you.”

Both Fallon and Kimmel have since announced their own shows will go dark on May 21, airing reruns so that NBC and ABC clear the field entirely for Colbert’s finale.

Why the Show Is Ending

CBS canceled The Late Show last July, with Paramount describing the decision as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” But the timing raised eyebrows. The cancellation came amid Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount — a merger that closed roughly a month after the show’s end was confirmed — and after Colbert had publicly called CBS’s parent company settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump a “big fat bribe.”

CBS released a statement at the time calling Colbert “irreplaceable” and announcing it would retire The Late Show franchise entirely. “He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television,” the network said. Taking the 11:35 p.m. slot next season will be Comics Unleashed, hosted by Byron Allen, which currently airs at 12:35 a.m. following After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson.

Colbert himself has been candid about the bittersweet circumstances. In an exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he “did not expect it to end this way” — but also acknowledged there’s a strange freedom in not being the one who pulled the plug. “If I’d decided to end the show, then I’m the bad guy — hard to make jokes about that,” he said. “Maybe they gave me a gift.”

What Comes Next for Colbert

As for what’s next, Colbert has said he’s not entirely sure — though it was announced in March that he’s writing a new Lord of the Rings film. And his life outside the Ed Sullivan Theater isn’t slowing down either. On the Strike Force Five podcast, he put the week in perspective: “My son graduates college on the 18th, my show ends on the 21st, my brother gets married on the 23rd. So I’m kind of sandwiched between things that are a little more important. A little perspective.”

He’s also been open about the hard reality for his staff. “No one’s got a job after that night,” he said. “I think the next day, everyone’s fired. We all have to be out by the next Friday. Like, physically absent from the theater.”

This is Colbert’s second time closing out a long-running show. When The Colbert Report ended in 2014, he orchestrated one of the most memorable late-night finales ever — a packed room of surprise celebrity guests, a rendition of “We’ll Meet Again,” and a final exit on Santa’s sleigh alongside Abraham Lincoln and Alex Trebek. That time, he already knew what was coming next. This time, he’s stepping into the unknown.

The series finale of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs Thursday, May 21 at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, and streams on Paramount+.

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• David Letterman made his final Late Show appearance Thursday, one week before Colbert’s May 21 sign-off
• The two hosts threw guest chairs, Colbert’s desk seat, watermelons, and a cake off the Ed Sullivan Theater roof onto the CBS logo below
• Letterman closed the segment by paraphrasing Ed Murrow with a bleeped — but very obvious — farewell to CBS executives
• Letterman previously called CBS brass “lying weasels” for claiming the cancellation was purely financial
• The final week has also featured Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, and the entire Strike Force Five late-night crew

David Letterman came back to say goodbye — and he did not come quietly.

The original Late Show host joined Stephen Colbert on Thursday night for what he called his final appearance on the show he built, and together the two men did something Colbert had been explicitly forbidden from doing since the day he took over: they climbed to the top of the Ed Sullivan Theater and started throwing things off the roof.

First came the guest chairs — the ones that have seated presidents, pop stars, and everyone in between. Then Colbert’s own desk seat. Then watermelons, a callback to Letterman’s old NBC days when he famously launched them out of windows. Then a cake. All of it raining down onto the CBS eyemark logo on the street below.

“I thought maybe tonight’s occasion would be a little sad, being the end of your run here,” Letterman said from the roof, “but this brings true joy to my heart. We are up here for the wanton destruction of CBS property.”

Colbert had his own confession to make. “This is a true story. When I first got this gig, one of the first things they told me before we even moved into the offices is that I would not be allowed to throw anything off of the roof of the Ed Sullivan building, because evidently there was a problem with a previous tenant,” he said. “I never did it, but we’re at the end here, so all bets are off.”

The segment started downstairs, where Letterman admired the studio furniture with the energy of a man with absolutely nothing to lose. “This is nice,” he said. “It’d be a shame if something happened to this” — before a crew of people materialized to carry it all upstairs.

“Good Night and Good Luck, Motherf*cker”

But it was the end of the rooftop segment that nobody is going to forget. Letterman, standing above Broadway, signed off with a message directed not at the audience at home — but squarely at the network.

“I’d like to say to the audience before we go, well, not necessarily to the audience, but to the folks at CBS,” he said. “In the words of the great Ed Murrow: good night and good luck, motherfucker.”

The last word was bleeped. It did not need to be heard to be understood.

Earlier in the episode, Letterman joked that while he was backstage, he ran into someone from CBS — “and then he fired me.” He also got a little more serious about what the theater, and the show, actually represent. “I will say, and I have every right to be pissed off, so I’ll be pissed off here a little bit, because this theater — you folks wouldn’t be in this theater if it weren’t for me, and Stephen wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me, and we rebuilt this theater, and then Stephen came in and look at this, it’s like the Bellagio,” he said. “As we all understand, you can take a man’s show, you can’t take a man’s voice. So that’s the good news in this.”

Letterman hosted The Late Show from 1993 to 2015, when Colbert stepped in as his successor. Now that chapter is closing entirely — CBS announced it’s not just ending Colbert’s run but canceling the Late Show franchise altogether, with the final episode set for May 21.

“They’re Lying Weasels”

Letterman has been vocal about what he thinks is really going on. CBS has maintained the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and had nothing to do with the show’s content or performance. Letterman doesn’t buy it.

“They’re lying,” he told the New York Times last week. “They’re lying weasels.” He went further, describing how Colbert got pushed out in the shuffle of the network’s sale to David Ellison’s Skydance: “He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry.'”

Many of Colbert’s fans share the skepticism, given how relentlessly critical the host has been of President Trump throughout his tenure. Colbert himself has not backed down from his public dispute with CBS leadership in the weeks since the cancellation was announced.

A Week of Goodbyes

Thursday’s rooftop chaos came in the middle of an extraordinary final week for the show. On Monday, the entire Strike Force Five assembled — Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers all appeared together to send Colbert off, prompting him to quip: “Late night is in a bit of a weird spot right now — spoiler alert. The five of us being here right now, obviously, it’s dangerous because we represent so much of late night. Jon Stewart is the designated survivor. Someone has to survive for the president to be mad at.”

Wednesday brought two more heavy hitters. Former President Barack Obama stopped by for “The Colbert Questionert,” revealing that his favorite sandwich is a cheeseburger, his scariest animal is the mosquito, and that when asked what happens when we die, he offered something genuinely moving — that if you’ve lived a good life, you live on in the memories of the people who loved you. Tom Hanks also appeared Wednesday, presenting Colbert with birthday gifts including a typewriter, dot matrix paper, and a bag of Hanks Coffee (which the Oscar winner is selling to benefit veterans), while promoting his new History Channel documentary.

CBS has not yet announced the full guest lineup for Colbert’s final episodes leading up to May 21. But after Thursday night, it’s hard to imagine anything topping a former late-night legend hurling furniture off a Manhattan rooftop and dropping a bleeped Murrow reference on the network that built him.

“You can take a man’s show,” Letterman said. “You can’t take a man’s voice.”

The post Letterman Drops CBS F-Bomb in Wild Late Show Farewell appeared first on Cream.

• David Letterman appeared on The Late Show Thursday — likely his final appearance on the show he originally hosted from 1993 to 2015
• The two threw guest chairs, Colbert’s desk chair, watermelons, and a wedding cake off the Ed Sullivan Theater roof onto a CBS logo
• Letterman signed off with a blistering Ed Murrow parody: “Good night and good luck, motherf*cker”
• Colbert’s final episode airs May 21 — the show’s cancellation has been widely linked to the Trump-aligned Skydance takeover of CBS
• Letterman previously called CBS executives “lying weasels” for claiming the cancellation was purely financial

David Letterman came back to The Late Show on Thursday night — and he did not come quietly. One week before Stephen Colbert’s final episode, the man who built the show and the theater that houses it returned to help his successor go out with maximum chaos, maximum heart, and a farewell to CBS that will be quoted for a very long time.

The night ended on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Letterman and Colbert launched guest chairs, Colbert’s own desk chair, watermelons, and a wedding cake off the building and onto a giant CBS eyemark logo painted below. “I thought maybe tonight’s occasion would be a little sad, being the end of your run here,” Letterman said as they surveyed the scene. “But this brings true joy to my heart. We are up here for the wanton destruction of CBS property.”

And then, invoking the legendary broadcast journalist Ed Murrow, Letterman delivered his parting shot to the network: “Good night and good luck, motherf*cker.” The last word was bleeped, but nobody in the Ed Sullivan Theater — or watching at home — had any trouble filling it in.

“You Can Take a Man’s Show, You Can’t Take a Man’s Voice”

Before the rooftop destruction, Letterman walked out to a lengthy standing ovation — the band kicking things off with a thundering “Seven Nation Army” — and wasted no time making clear exactly how he feels about all of this.

“I have every right to be pissed off, so I’ll be pissed off here a little bit,” he told Colbert. “This theater — you folks wouldn’t be in this theater if it weren’t for me. And Stephen wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. We rebuilt this theater, and then Stephen came in, and look at this? It’s like the Bellagio.” He paused. “But, listen — as we all understand, you can take a man’s show, you can’t take a man’s voice.”

He also got off one of the night’s best jokes early: “Well, you know what happened backstage? I’m standing backstage, a guy comes over, he says he’s from CBS — and he fires me. What is going on over there?!”

Letterman then turned his concern, with perfect comic timing, to the late-night ecosystem at large. “What I’m really worried about is: What will become of the Jimmys? Are they going to be all right?” — a nod to Colbert’s fellow hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon. Colbert’s response: “We’ve got a plan to put them in a captive breeding program.”

How the Furniture Ended Up on the Roof

The bit started simply enough. Letterman admired the set — the plush guest chairs, the desk, the whole polished Late Show setup — and asked Colbert point-blank: does CBS own this furniture? When Colbert confirmed it, Letterman’s eyes lit up. “This is nice. Would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Within moments, stagehands were stripping the stage bare. With nowhere left to sit, Letterman and Colbert wandered into the audience, sat with fans, and reminisced about their shared history in the theater before heading upstairs. Colbert noted that when he first got the gig, one of the very first things he was told was that he would not be allowed to throw anything off the roof — “because evidently there was a problem with a previous tenant.” He never did it. Until Thursday.

Letterman, of course, was famous during his NBC years for hurling watermelons out of windows. Doing it again, from the roof of the building he helped restore, onto the logo of the network that just canceled his successor — it landed as both callback and catharsis.

What’s Really Behind the Cancellation

CBS has maintained that ending The Late Show was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” unrelated to the show’s content. Letterman doesn’t buy a word of it — and he’s said so publicly.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, he called CBS executives “lying weasels” and laid out his theory plainly: “He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'”

The timing has fueled enormous suspicion. The cancellation was announced shortly after Colbert mocked Paramount’s $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump, calling it a “big fat bribe.” Trump himself celebrated openly on Truth Social, posting: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.” That the announcement came just weeks before David Ellison’s Skydance finalized its CBS-Paramount takeover made the optics nearly impossible to spin. Even Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on the network’s claimed $40 million annual loss figure, saying there was “not a snowball’s chance in hell that’s accurate.”

Colbert, for his part, told The Hollywood Reporter that he “did not expect it to end this way.”

One Week Left

Thursday’s appearance made Letterman’s return feel like a proper passing of the torch — or more accurately, a passing of the watermelon. He hosted The Late Show from 1993 to 2015, handed it to Colbert, and now watched it end under circumstances neither of them chose.

The final week has been a parade of people who love Colbert and wanted to show up for him. Earlier this week, the entire Strike Force Five — Kimmel, Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers — appeared together on the show. Tom Hanks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Barack Obama have all stopped by in recent weeks.

Colbert’s last episode airs May 21. And somewhere in the rubble of CBS furniture on the sidewalk outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, Letterman’s message to the network is still echoing: good night, and good luck.

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