Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation Is Exactly What You Think It Is

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At the beginning of his Thursday night broadcast, Stephen Colbert forced a sad smile as he addressed the audience with some grim news. “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night,” intoned the veteran comedian. “Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May, and—”

The studio spectators cut him off with a loud, extended chorus of boos, as Colbert appeared to vacillate between laughing and choking up. “Yeah, I share your feelings!” he gingerly continued. “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced.” Another string of boos hit, before Colbert raised his hands to add another point. “I do wanna say, the folks at CBS have been great partners,” the host declared, expressing gratitude to his staffers and viewers and prompting them to cheer for the next 10 months The Late Show will remain on air—its very last, as a capper to the franchise that David Letterman kicked off in 1993.

Left conspicuously unthanked: Paramount, the corporation that Colbert has called home for two decades. Also unmentioned: his Monday monologue, in which he’d called his parent company’s notorious legal settlement with President Donald Trump “a big fat bribe.” But it hardly escaped anyone’s notice that The Late Show’s cancellation had happened the same week that Colbert spent three minutes of his show directly picking apart Paramount’s refusal to defend CBS in court from Trump’s ridiculous lawsuit against 60 Minutes. Nor was it all that believable that Colbert’s bosses would suddenly drop one of their biggest and most beloved celebrities without some more unseemly objectives in mind.

Last October, then-candidate Trump’s team baselessly accused 60 Minutes’ editorial team of editing the show’s interview with Kamala Harris to tilt the election in her favor. The storied newsmagazine’s anchors and staffers later warned viewers, on the show itself, that the constitutional right to a free and fair press had been undermined by Paramount’s planned merger with the entertainment firm Skydance. The latter company is owned by the son of tech mogul and Trump pal Larry Ellison—who had himself invested not only in this merger, but in one of Trump’s A.I. initiatives. Paramount needed the Federal Communications Commission’s approval for the deal to happen—which it was unlikely to earn under agency Chair Brendan Carr, who had explicitly stated that the 60 Minutes “issue” would be a factor of consideration.

So, instead of fighting an easily winnable case, Paramount folded, pushing out several 60 Minutes leaders and gifting $16 million to Trump’s lawyers and his presidential library. The suits aren’t calling Colbert’s departure a firing per se; CBS’s statement referred to the host as “irreplaceable” and characterized the Late Show’s ending as “a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

No one believed it when Paramount said the exact same thing about the Trump settlement. (Co-CEO George Cheeks, who informed shareholders of that legal resolution, is also the reported decisionmaker behind The Late Show’s end.) And no one believes it now, in spite of the undeniable fact that traditional late-night TV is a format in decline. The Late Show was consistently the second-most-viewed show of its genre, lagging behind only Fox News’ Gutfeld! in ratings. Certainly, Colbert’s well-resourced shop was pricey: At Puck News, Matthew Belloni writes that the show reported $40 million in annual losses, thanks to steep plunges in ad revenue that have racked traditional TV as an enterprise. And insider publications like Puck, Variety, and Status News have reported that CBS had expressed concern over Late Show finances for months, as the network reviewed Colbert’s contract and its summer 2026 expiration date.

Nevertheless, Variety’s reporting also adds that “Paramount has appeared extremely sensitive” to Colbert’s brand of anti-Trump political comedy, especially in light of the settlement. And the Ellison family members who control Skydance are unmistakably pro-Trump conservatives who hope to shift away from Paramount’s more liberal bona fides. (See also: Jon Stewart, who’s already worried that The Daily Show could be sold off.)

On top of that, Larry Ellison’s son, David, met with the FCC’s Carr earlier this week to get the merger ironed out, promising that CBS would embrace “varied ideological perspectives” under his watch. Such perspectives are likely to be influenced by the right-wingers Ellison wishes to add to the CBS operation, including David Rhodes (a longtime Rupert Murdoch lieutenant), Jeff Shell (the appointed president for the Paramount-Skydance conglomerate, who reportedly pressured 60 Minutes executives ahead of the settlement), and Free Press editor Bari Weiss. (According to Belloni, Skydance is reportedly in talks to acquire Weiss’ increasingly Trumpy publication; if both the Paramount and Free Press deals go through, Rhodes and Weiss would serve as the “ideological guide” for CBS News.)

All this is why no one really buys that Colbert’s cancellation is just business as usual. Trump was certainly gleeful, posting on Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired.” Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff—the latter of whom was a guest on Colbert’s Thursday show—each voiced their suspicions that The Late Show was done in for “political reasons.” The Writers Guild of America called for New York state Attorney General Letitia James to launch an investigation into that possibility. And plenty of Colbert’s fellow comedians weighed in, with Jimmy Kimmel offering CBS a social media “fuck you” and Julia Louis-Dreyfus directing an angry statement at Paramount and its owner, Shari Redstone. Even CBS staffers are raging, with a few anonymous sources telling the Independent that not one of them “is buying that it’s a financial decision.”

At the end of the day, it’s also a hell of a way for Paramount to end its longtime, lucrative partnership with one of the defining comics of a generation. The studio acquired Comedy Central in 2003, just as Colbert was coming to wider fame as correspondent for Stewart’s first Daily Show run. Shortly after, he got a landmark solo gig as host of the channel’s Colbert Report, before moving to CBS as Letterman’s Late Show successor—a prestigious slot he earned just as Donald Trump was rising to national power. By the time Colbert cedes his hosting duties next May, he’ll have worked under Paramount for 23 straight years, in a career that brought him millions of fans thanks to his sharp, hilarious, unvarnished takedowns of modern-day American conservatism. Throughout this era, Colbert bravely called out President George W. Bush to his face at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, ran a brief presidential campaign, testified to Congress on behalf of immigrant farmworkers, made a personal enemy of Trump with his Late Show commentary, and even confronted, on air, the sexual assault allegations leveled against former CBS chief Les Moonves.

It was that honesty and frankness, combined with his biting touch, that made Stephen Colbert such a TV icon. Paramount had always known that, yet it sold him out for cheap. No wonder Colbert’s fans are once again calling for him to run for president. He’ll certainly have some extra time to plan a campaign very soon.