"The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," is Cancelled and that Sucks. Plus, the Optics Look Bad

Paramount owns CBS (as well as being behind the streamer Paramount+, of course) and just recently announced that as of May 2026, "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," would be no more. He isn't being replaced with another host; it is just being shuttered. Paramount stressed this decision was purely financial and had nothing to do with anything else...which itself looks like an admission of something everyone has observed--the optics for this are terrible. Colbert is a vocal critic of the Trump administration and how CBS just settled a lawsuit with Trump. Paramount also wants to merge with Skydance, and the FCC needs to approve that--something Trump could screw-up as he's a petty narcissist with thin skin who hates Colbert. Paramount can say the Late Show is ending because there isn't much money to be made in late-night talk shows (which has some truth), but the timing is so, so bad. Donald Trump already took some form of credit for the cancellation and claimed Jimmy Kimmel would be next over at ABC, somehow.

Colbert is #1 in late-night rankings and was just nominated for another Emmy. Besides maybe John Oliver (on HBO) and John Stewart (who does the "Daily Show," part-time on a Cable channel), he goes the hardest at Trump of shows on late in the day, and he definitely is the staunchest critic on network television. Trump is no fan of Kimmel, either, or even Fallon (he did not recently name Fallon so much as saying he was, "That moron," on NBC). Right now, however, he's been patting himself on the back about Colbert and probably feels emboldened, regardless of if this was just a money-matters issue or something politically driven. If Kamala Harris were President now, would Colbert still be canceled? I don't have a magical dimension-hopping machine because if I did, I'd get rich selling folks tickets to happier realities, but one wonders.

I'm upset Colbert will no longer have, "The Late Show," but do imagine other entities will be eager to hire him--that may be a silver lining to this big old shitstorm cloud that is Donald Trump. I do imagine Colbert will refuse to tone down any rhetoric before the last episode in May because he has nothing to lose in terms of his CBS gig. This news sucks for fans of the program, Colbert, and anyone who works on, "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," regardless of the reasons behind the show's cancellation.