Stephen Colbert shares exact reason why CBS cancelled his late-night show

Stephen Colbert recently discussed his late-night talk show ahead of its conclusion.

For those unaware, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will sign off for good on May 21, 2026, after CBS announced the show’s cancellation in July 2025. The show aired its first episode on September 8, 2015.

Colbert sat with the New York Times to discuss his how and what led to its end by saying, “I do not dispute their rationale. I do make jokes about it. But I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn’t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me, because the network did it to themselves.”

The 61-year-old American comedian and writer went on to urge that staying silent on a point does not prove the other right or wrong.

He quipped, “It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming.”

“They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say, ‘It’s over,’ they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed,” Colbert noted.

The Despicable Me 4 star is letting go of the argument as the show is ending even though he knows it might work well in comedy.

“I feel so much better to be ‘grateful for’ than to be ‘mad about' the past 11 years on CBS,” he stated.

Notably, the cancellation of The Late Night with Stephen Colbert was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”

It is pertinent to mention that Stephen Colbert always claimed that CBS cancelled the show just two days after Paramount Global settled President Donald Trump’s lawsuit for $16 million, which he called “a big fat bride” during his show.