It’s official: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is off the air. It wrapped its final show on Thursday, May 21, 2026.
And, in keeping with tradition, I didn’t watch.
I first wrote about the show’s demise on my Substack last year. It was then, is now, and ever shall be…a business decision.
Don’t cry for Stephen, he’ll be fine. He’ll be on Substack soon. He’ll launch a podcast. Probably sell rights to Netflix — he is part of the Democratic Industrial Complex, after all; see Letterman, David, or Obama, Barack and Michelle — and, again, the facts won’t matter because the narrative does.
First, The Money
Last year I wrote the following:
If you don’t see the changes to the modern media world, you are likely completely lost.
Ignore your thoughts about Colbert as a person; Ignore his politics, too — even though they contributed to his demise at the network — and think about this as a business decision.
No operational executive worth his salt in the modern business world would lose $40 million on a product year over year (over year, since Colbert started in 2015) and not find himself shown the door. In fact, the plug should have been pulled years ago.
Part of the reason for that quote was because of this tweet, which underscored how crazy the finances were for the show (and for network TV writ large):
Pore over numbers all you want, but, as an executive, you cannot keep losing $40 million EACH YEAR on a product without deciding to shut the product down.
So enough about the finances. Let’s talk about two other things that kept me away from the program, and will keep me away from crying of its death.
‘Republicans Buy Sneakers, Too’
You cannot hate an audience repeatedly, then expect the very audience you hate to watch your program. Especially…on CBS; sure, the news division has always been Left-leaning, but it’s not known as “The Old People’s Network” for nothing. Shows like Blue Bloods could not have found an audience on any other mainstream network.
Yet, there was Colbert continuing to thumb his nose — “SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER!” — at 50% of his potential viewers.
Continuing to have only guests that appeared to be pre-approved by the Democratic National Committe cemented his fate not as an entertainer or a comedian — meh at the first, not passable as the second — but as a champion of The Narrative. And that he excelled at. Less about speaking truth to power, and more about shouting with a megaphone in an echo chamber.
In fact, he so alienated half of the potential audience that he opened the door for Fox News to put its muscle behind Gutfeld! — which first launched on weekends in 2015, then made the leap to 11 p.m. Eastern in 2021 — and that muscle led to Gutfeld! doubling The Late Show‘s ratings on some weeks (3.3-3.5 million vs. 1.5 to 2.3 million).
It’s an own goal.
The Other Thing: LARPing as a Catholic
The above tweet and video is rather illuminating. Stephen’s religious views are between he and God, but I find it incredibly odd that, given an opportunity to share his faith, he…didn’t.
This is someone who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican last year, and has often professed to be a Catholic. Fine, but…well, not fine.
He probably didn’t want, again, to do anything that was counter to The Narrative.
Fare Thee Well, Late Show
Unlike David Letterman, whose CBS run was great until it, too, went too-far-Left for half of its potential audience, Colbert never had any of the irony or the sensibility — or the music: let’s face it, Paul Shaffer’s work as Music Director won’t be matched, and Paul was the reason Dave had the best musical guests in history — and was actually gravitas-negative.
It’s like the startup that built the cool offices, kept raising money, didn’t focus on the product, and now must shut down.
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