--- title: CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons' | TIME description: Late-night TV has been on the decline for years, as viewers spend more time on streaming services and often favor late-show clips on YouTube or TikTok over nightly appointment viewing. But CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was still leading the race by a mile. Second-quarter Nielsen ratings show that the program helmed by comedian Stephen Colbert had 2.42 million viewers across 41 new episodes, taking some 9% of the audience share and besting other shows in his timeslot. It was also the only show to rake in more viewers than in the previous quarter. And earlier this week, it received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding talk series. canonical: https://time.com/video/cXzaap2n/ og:title: CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons' og:description: Late-night TV has been on the decline for years, as viewers spend more time on streaming services and often favor late-show clips on YouTube or TikTok over nightly appointment viewing. But CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was still leading the race by a mile. Second-quarter Nielsen ratings show that the program helmed by comedian Stephen Colbert had 2.42 million viewers across 41 new episodes, taking some 9% of the audience share and besting other shows in his timeslot. It was also the only show to rake in more viewers than in the previous quarter. And earlier this week, it received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding talk series. og:url: https://time.com/video/cXzaap2n/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/cXzaap2n/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons' twitter:description: Late-night TV has been on the decline for years, as viewers spend more time on streaming services and often favor late-show clips on YouTube or TikTok over nightly appointment viewing. But CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was still leading the race by a mile. Second-quarter Nielsen ratings show that the program helmed by comedian Stephen Colbert had 2.42 million viewers across 41 new episodes, taking some 9% of the audience share and besting other shows in his timeslot. It was also the only show to rake in more viewers than in the previous quarter. And earlier this week, it received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding talk series. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/cXzaap2n/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * U.S. # CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons' > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons' [Watch (HLS stream): CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Citing ‘Financial Reasons'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/cXzaap2n.m3u8) (1:36)  _Published 2025-07-18. Late-night TV has been on the decline for years, as viewers spend more time on streaming services and often favor late-show clips on YouTube or TikTok over nightly appointment viewing. But CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was still leading the race by a mile. Second-quarter Nielsen ratings show that the program helmed by comedian Stephen Colbert had 2.42 million viewers across 41 new episodes, taking some 9% of the audience share and besting other shows in his timeslot. It was also the only show to rake in more viewers than in the previous quarter. And earlier this week, it received a Primetime Emmy nomination for outstanding talk series._ --- Jul 18, 2025 8:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Late Night Highlight: Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Looked Pretty Familiar](/video/ZNmLpZOw/) ### Late Night Highlight: Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Looked Pretty Familiar [Colbert on The New Late Show](/video/SoibXece/) ### Colbert on The New Late Show [Late Night Highlight: Stephen Colbert Stops By The ‘Late Show’](/video/xS1Khn76/) ### Late Night Highlight: Stephen Colbert Stops By The ‘Late Show’ --- ## Transcript Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending the Late Show in May. And. Yeah, I share your feelings. 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. This is all just going away. Television viewers usually love surprises, but here's one they probably did not like or did not see coming. CBS has announced that Stephen Colbert's show, The Late Show, will be ending at the end of next May. The news came as a surprise to a lot of people because in the late night ratings, Stephen Colbert is number one. CBS says that the reasons for this are economic and not because of the content of the show. Even though Stephen Colbert has been a very frequent and loud critic of President Trump, and three days before this announcement went out publicly and criticized CBS's parent company, Paramount's deal with President Trump to settle a lawsuit, it is true that the late night genre has been declining. Uh has much less revenue than it had ten years ago, because a lot of viewers are going to streaming services or going online to get some of their late night jokes. But this was a bombshell. 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