Stephen Colbert’s turn behind the desk at The Late Show will end on May 21, closing a run that lasted more than 10 years and turned a franchise once known for David Letterman’s snark into something steadier, warmer and, by most measures, more enduring. CBS said in July that the program would wrap the following May, and the network has said the decision was purely financial.
For Colbert, the show became a place to be both funny and disarming. He had Joe Biden on during the coronavirus pandemic to talk about how to handle grief. He spoke with Dua Lipa about his Catholic faith. He asked Michelle Obama to do an impression of Barack Obama. He was delighted to hear Saoirse Ronan speak in her native Irish accent. Earlier this month, Christopher Nolan appeared on the show to present the trailer for The Odyssey, and Colbert opened by saying, “I know you don’t do this very often—don’t do the late-night shows.” Nolan shot back, “Only you, actually,” then added, “There you go—you’re pulling rank again,” before later telling him, “You don’t have to tell me, because I wouldn’t know what the hell you were saying.”
The show’s end lands in a late-night landscape that has been changing for years as live TV viewing becomes less common. Colbert’s style, built on sincerity and earnestness amid the gags, made him a calming counterbalance to Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, and his version of the program took something defined by Letterman’s appetite for bite and made it look, at times, like the most settled thing on television.
What makes the departure especially striking is the corporate weather around it. CBS’s parent company is Paramount Skydance, which recently settled a lawsuit with President Trump over a 60 Minutes interview and was angling for government approval of a potential takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. CBS has insisted the ending is about money, not politics, but the timing has left the move looking larger than a routine programming decision.
So when Colbert signs off, he will not just be leaving a show. He will be leaving the last version of late-night that still managed to feel like a conversation people wanted to join at 11:35 p.m., and CBS will be giving up a host who made that hour feel less like a punch line than a place to sit still for a while.
