CBS nixed Stephen Colbert’s ‘The Late Show’ over $40-50 million in annual losses, not politics: report

CBS's decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was driven by the late-night program losing between $40 million and $50 million per year, according to a report by the New York Post.

Last week, Colbert announced on-air that CBS had informed him this would be the final season of the show, with its end slated for May 2026. The network said at the time that the move was “purely a financial decision” and was not determined due to the show’s performance or content. But now, details of the growing strain the show placed on CBS’s bottom line have been brought to light, the Post reported.

Sources told the outlet that CBS executives had become frustrated with a steep decline in advertisers for Colbert's show, despite it being the top-rated program in its time slot. Paramount Co-CEO George Cheeks reportedly made the final call to cancel the series.

“Colbert gets no advertising and late night is a tough spot,” one source told the outlet. “Colbert might be No. 1, but who watches late night TV anymore?”

The show’s cancellation has sparked political speculation following Paramount’s recent $16 million legal settlement with President Donald Trump. Trump had sued the network over its editing of a 60 Minutes interview with former presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Many Democrats have suggested that Colbert’s cancellation was connected with the settlement.

“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren claimed on X. “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

Others have raised questions about the timing of the cancellation in light of Paramount’s pending $8 billion sale to Skydance Media, which will require regulatory approval from the Trump administration. Skydance CEO David Ellison is the son of tech billionaire Larry Ellison, a known Trump supporter.

However, the Post noted that sources close to the deal said Skydance and its equity partner, RedBird Capital, were only informed of the show’s cancellation shortly before the public announcement.

“Skydance had nothing to do with this,” a source told the outlet. “Colbert loses $40 million to $50 million a year, so George Cheeks just decided to pull the plug.”

The network has suffered from declining viewership overall, especially as younger audiences move away from cable television. The ad data firm Guideline estimated that CBS’s late-night lineup brought in an estimated $220 million in ad revenue in 2024, half of what it earned in 2018.

Meanwhile, President Trump celebrated the news on Truth Social, posting on Friday, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.”

“His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert,” Trump joked.