CBS canceling Colbert raises questions about the end of the night

There are two reflection schools on CBS’s decision to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”.

The first says that cancellation is a punctual exit from the vegetable time slot – that Primordial I was trying to cross the administrative formalities to finally merge with Skydance Media, an agreement which was approved by the Federal Communications Commission Thursday after more than a year in the limbo.

The other says that she reports the start of the end of television late at night.

The entertainment industry will have a better idea of the place where the truth is next year Disney Decides the fate of Jimmy Kimmel’s late evening show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.

While NBC recently extended the contracts of its two end -of -evening hosts, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, in 2028, Kimmel’s contract should be launched in 2026.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live” has been a basic food at the end of the evening since 2003, not only acting as a typical talk show on the circuit, but as a precious marketing center for Disney’s theatrical and television content. In addition to the traditional individual interviews, Kimmel will also frequently welcome several stars of the same project, often for the successful titles of Marvel, Star Wars and the animated franchises of the company.

The clips of these cats are supplied with Kimmel YouTube Channel, which has more than 20 million subscribers, and on social networks, helping to generate buzz for Disney projects to come.

By way of comparison, the Fallon show account has around 32 million subscribers, while Colbert is 10 million and from Meyers to just over 5 million.

Kimmel is also a frequent host of the Oscars, which is broadcast on ABC of Disney, and is currently the host of the Celebrity edition of ABC of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. These auxiliary assignments, as well as its annual job, the closure of Disney’s Upfronts presentation for advertisers, could make Kimmel more important for the long -term future of Disney than Colbert was for Paramount or CBS.

However, although the next media commitment test at the end of the evening is months of leave, the end of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” draws attention to the growing pressures of traditional television and the possibility of raising questions about the fact that the time slot can survive the evolving vision landscape.

The cost of production of late evening programs has increased as the media industry was turned upside down by dissemination habits and consumer movement. The traditional paid television bundle has lost millions of customers in recent years and, as they have disappeared, the same goes for advertising dollars.

The changing equation forced media companies to rebalance.

On a large scale, companies like Comcast Nbcuniversal and Discovery Warner Bros. have chosen to divide their cable television networks into separate corporate entities.

In terms of programming, the big shows are more and more Green enlightened for the release on streaming services rather than on traditional networks. The salaries of very paid news presenters have moderate, some completely moving away from traditional networks and starting their own businesses. And a large part of the money spent to inflate linear television networks and streaming services is reserved for live sports.

This leaves familiar titles in flow.

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” employed around 200 people and recorded annual losses of around 40 million dollars, according to a person familiar with the issue, who refused to be appointed speaking of non -public questions. “Jimmy Kimmel Live” employs around 250 people and loses roughly the same amount, according to a person familiar with the finances of this program.

While the Bundle Pay -TV is always going to the highest share of profits for inherited media companies – a large part of which follows from the costs that paid television distributors give to the networks to be included in the bundle – This figure is declining.

Linear television advertising income was also on a regular slope. Analysts and industry experts expected the advertising market to stabilize in 2025 after tumultuous years centered on streaming, but macroeconomic uncertainty hampered the recovery.

In the quarterly results which were reported in May, PrimordialNbcuniversal and Disney have each reported sales of lower announcements over one year on the other.

Paramount reported in May that its television advertising revenues in the first quarter were down 21% to 2.04 billion dollars, mainly due to comparisons with the period of the previous year when the company had the Super Bowl. This championship invites the most advertising dollars of any live event on television. Without the Super Bowl, advertising revenues would have been flat, said the company. The overall income of the Paramount TV segment fell by 13%.

Among the traditional television advertising expenses that remain, the largest share has live sports, which attracts the most public. Nbcuniversal recently praised its record volume of advertising sales during the last initial cycle due to an upcoming list of the NBA, Super Bowl, Winter Olympic Games and other sports.

Disney reported in May that quarterly revenues from its internal linear networks were down 3% to $ 2.2 billion, awarding the downward drop in advertising income. However, Disney noted that advertising revenues for ESPN and sports in general have increased in advertising revenues.

These opposite winds help to legitimize Paramount’s decision to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, but the time at the end of the program raised suspension.

The announcement that Colbert’s program would take its last arc in May 2026 only occurred a few days after the titular host publicly called Paramount for its $ 16 million regulations with President Donald Trump for the modification of a “60-minute” interview with former vice-president Kamala Harris.

Colbert described the colony of “big-briefs” during one of his show opening monologues, referring to the merger then pending between Paramount and Skydance Media, which forced the approval of the Trump administration.

The leaders of Paramount and CBS published a statement last week saying that cancellation was “purely a financial decision against the difficult context at the end of the evening”.

“It is in no way linked to performance, content or other questions of the show in Paramount,” continued the company.

While the notes of Colbert’s show have decreased in the last decade, the program has always obtained the highest views of all shows at 11:35 pm, exceeding “Jimmy Kimmel Live” by ABC and “The Tonight Show of NBC with Jimmy Fallon”, according to Nielsen.

However, Colbert’s dimensions have decreased each season. For the last period from September to May, Colbert represented an average of around 1.9 million viewers, the majority of viewers coming to the demographic group over 65 years of age, according to Nielsen – a point of revealing data on the state of television viewers.

The number of Kimmel viewers depicts a similar table, with the publication of the period from September to May in 2019-2020 in the last in 2024-2025, when the average was nearly 1.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

When Paramount listed his list of TV shows very well rated during his latest winning report, including “Tracker”, the best rated series and “Matlock”, the new most rated series, he also listed “The Late Show” by Colbert as the best rated end of the evening. “The Daily Show”, also of Paramount, was the first late evening show on cable television.

Some industry experts wondered if CBS could have explored other ways to save money – or save late at night – in addition to canceling outright “The Late Show”. NBC has reduced costs by eliminating the group in the MEYERS late evening show and passing Fallon to four nights per week instead of five.

CBS tried to put a younger demographic group within an hour with “After Midnight”, a late evening show that ran after Colbert. The show was hosted by the actor Taylor Tomlinson and was focused on viral internet phenomena.

Although CBS intends to renew the show after his first two seasons, Tomlinson decided not to extend his contract and the show was canceled.

Disclosure: Comcast has nbcuniversal, the parent company of CNBC.