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Late Show ending May 2026

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While I hate to see The Late Show’s demise, I wonder whether some “habit-forming” late night shows might work, such as replays of “Beyond the Gates” or other soaps.
 
K.M. Richards said:
I watch Kimmel's monologue but unless he has a guest that I'm interested in, I'm out of there after that. I stopped watching CBS when Letterman retired, and NBC when Leno did.
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I watch Stewart's videos faithfully but although I'm aligned with Jimmy for the most part, his monologues hit me as boring and whiny. I only watch the musical guests via YouTube the next morning.
 
only1moore said:
Meanwhile… Trump is now targeting Kimmel
www.tvinsider.com

Jimmy Fallon Reacts to Colbert 'Late Show' Cancellation as Trump Says 'Kimmel Is Next'

'I really thought I'd ride this out with him for years to come.'
www.tvinsider.com www.tvinsider.com
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So, here's the issue. There's probably ALREADY a 80% chance that Kimmel will not renew in 2026. He himself has said he's ready to retire. But, by Trump saying this, he can then later claim credit whether he had anything to do with it or not (and he's highly likely to have nothing to do with it).

What people don't realize is, even by blaming him because you hate him, you just gave him more power to claim that it was all him, when the reality is that these discussions have been going on before Trump even announced he was running again.
 
Meanwhile, lost in the conversation, is the fact that hundreds of people who have devoted their lives to a career in broadcasting are about to be cut loose with far fewer opportunities for employment in the industry than there were just a few short years ago. Most of the people behind the scenes are probably not in a position like Colbert or Kimmel where they can sit back waiting for their next opportunity or ride off comfortably into the sunset.
 
Tibbs4 said:
Whose counting now that the show is trashed? (My humor obviously about as good as the last late night show I watched - Pat Sajak.)
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Let's cycle back to this whole "show that no one watched" thing, though.

There's a difference between the show losing money, which a source close to the show has told Brian Stelter...and "no one is watching".

From the Nielsen numbers I posted earlier, Colbert over the quarter just ended averaged 2,417,000 viewers a night.

Would you say "no one watches" Laura Ingraham or Sean Hannity?

FOX INGRAHAM 2,313,000
FOX HANNITY 2,278,000

And they're in prime time.

Again, I won't dispute the economics. It costs one hell of a lot more to produce Colbert than probably Ingraham and Hannity combined, and prime-time spot rates are higher so they probably take more money in---but Colbert, even with the disadvantage of the hour, draws more eyeballs.
 
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TheBigA said:
We really can't match the expense of the Ed Sullivan Theater. That building must cost a lot to main for a one hour daily show.
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A New York Times piece from ten years ago said that while Letterman liked the ambient temperature in there to be 60 degrees, Colbert would settle for 65.

When you factor in the size of the theater, the number of bodies (audience, talent and crew), lights and equipment, the bill for that alone must be an eye-popper.
 
tall_guy1 said:
The only one I'm actively rooting for them to get rid of is Bill Maher. 🤢
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Let's get something straight: While I have my own issues with Maher, he is not on broadcast TV. He is on HBO and Max, which people choose to subscribe to and pay for. The only part of Maher that's not on HBO/Max is the ten (or so) minute segment, "Overtime", that runs on CNN and Youtube.

(The excerpts from Maher's full-hour show that appear on Youtube are either (a) clips that are put up by HBO itself, or Maher's own production company itself, to promote the show and entice people to subscribe, or (b) bootlegs that other people posted illegally, hoping to fool you into clicking on their version before the inevitable take-down notice hits.)

Since you have to be a subscriber to watch the full show, and pay for the privilege, he has the right to say anything, using any language, he chooses to. This is not the situation Colbert or any of the other network hosts are in. Their shows need to attract the broadest audience possible to sell the most ad time possible at the highest rates possible. And they need to do it within the language and content constraints of the law and FCC regulations. Totally unequal playing fields.

You may be rooting for "them" to get rid of Maher, but he's been doing what he's doing for something like 22 or 23 years now, so he's doing something right, wouldn't you say?
 
michael hagerty said:
A New York Times piece from ten years ago said that while Letterman liked the ambient temperature in there to be 60 degrees, Colbert would settle for 65.

When you factor in the size of the theater, the number of bodies (audience, talent and crew), lights and equipment, the bill for that alone must be an eye-popper.
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My wife and I attended tapings of both Letterman's and Colbert's shows in the Ed Sullivan. Colbert's was on a balmy October day, and we had no problem with the ambient temperature. Letterman, OTOH, we saw on a hot, muggy July day, and after a few minutes I needed a sweater (which of course I didn't have, since it was July in NYC, not San Francisco).

Keep in mind that the EST isn't just the theater. There's also an attached 13 story office building too, also owned by CBS, and Colbert's production company and staff occupies some percentage of that space too, at Manhattan commercial real estate market rates. Possibly with some discount from CBS, but still that space can't be cheap, and all together the cost has to be a killer if the show's not operating at full ad-sales potential.
 
Do the Nielsen numbers include streaming on Paramount and/or watching show clips via YouTube? Monday's monologue, for example, has 2.3 million views on YouTube. Does CBS/Paramount encode those videos or the Paramount streaming service to be included in the total for Nielsen households?
 
With the Late Show ending, will NBC and ABC pickup viewers and revenue?

For years there was only the Tonight Show and I was under the assumption that NBC made some money with it. Enough that that they ended up 3 or 4 challengers.
 
Weiserguy said:
Let's get something straight: While I have my own issues with Maher, he is not on broadcast TV. He is on HBO and Max, which people choose to subscribe to and pay for. The only part of Maher that's not on HBO/Max is the ten (or so) minute segment, "Overtime", that runs on CNN and Youtube.

(The excerpts from Maher's full-hour show that appear on Youtube are either (a) clips that are put up by HBO itself, or Maher's own production company itself, to promote the show and entice people to subscribe, or (b) bootlegs that other people posted illegally, hoping to fool you into clicking on their version before the inevitable take-down notice hits.)

Since you have to be a subscriber to watch the full show, and pay for the privilege, he has the right to say anything, using any language, he chooses to. This is not the situation Colbert or any of the other network hosts are in. Their shows need to attract the broadest audience possible to sell the most ad time possible at the highest rates possible. And they need to do it within the language and content constraints of the law and FCC regulations. Totally unequal playing fields.

You may be rooting for "them" to get rid of Maher, but he's been doing what he's doing for something like 22 or 23 years now, so he's doing something right, wouldn't you say?
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Aye, aye, aye. None of the bold text is even related at all to what I'm saying. Did I say anything about the profanity/FCC rules? As a liberal, I think Bill Maher is one of the worst "Democrats" I can think of. He doesn't help our cause, he's malicious, uses false equivalences...there's a lot of reasons society would be better without that show.
 
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