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"It's not just the end of our show," Stephen Colbert told his surprised audience last night, "but it's the end of The Late Show on CBS. I'm not
being replaced. This is all just going away."

Indeed. And, likely, so is the entire late-night comedy genre -- about a
decade or more after its actual demise:

TV’s ongoing problems with late night have come for Stephen Colbert, with
CBS announcing Thursday that it plans to end his “Late Show” after the
next TV season, citing a “financial decision.”

The maneuver — which ends years of original late-night programming at CBS that started when the network lured David Letterman from NBC in 1993 —
comes as the economics of wee-hours TV have begun to accelerate, with
media companies growing wary of the high price tags involved in producing
the shows while the young viewers they try to attract watch more of them
via digital video.

Was this really a "financial decision," or did Paramount and Skydance
finally get tired of Colbert? The timing is curious, as AFP pointed out
this morning:

Stephen Colbert's "The Late Show", long a staple of late night US
television, will end in 2026, the CBS network said Thursday, days after
the comedian blasted parent company Paramount's $16 million settlement
with President Donald Trump as "a big fat bribe".

CBS said in a statement the cancellation was "purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night," and was "not related in any
way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at
(parent company) Paramount."

Others joined in to suggest that Colbert got canceled in retaliation,
notably Senate Democrats Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren. However, if
that were the case, Paramount would have canceled the show now, rather
than give Colbert another year on the air.

The truth is that late-night shows are becoming albatrosses. CBS won't be
the last network to look at the "financial decisions" around late night,
as Variety hints later in the same report. Some of it has to do with the evolution of television away from the "must see" scheduled-event paradigm
to streaming. With younger viewers less enchanted with live TV and more
apt to curate their own entertainment, late-night comedy has become one of
the first genres to become passé. But that's not the only thing going on
here:

It’s no secret among staffers and executives associated with late night
that the business of the format has been in decline. Young people are the
very consumers jumping first to new streaming behaviors that are less tied
to watching programs at a specific time and date. Hosts like Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert continue to generate headlines and digital memes
and still build sizable live audiences that the networks– and their distributors and advertisers — covet. But less so, and the ranks of the
hosts have narrowed in recent years. So too have episodes of the shows.
None of the medium’s regular hosts holds forth on Fridays any longer, with Fallon’s “Tonight” the last to give up the fifth night of the week.

Still, CBS’ decision has puzzled others in the industry. The exit of a popular late-night host is the kind of thing that might be announced
during “upfront” meetings with advertisers in May, so as to boost interest in the program for its last year on air. Indeed, Johnny Carson unveiled
his decision to leave NBC’s “Tonight Show” at a presentation to advertisers in 1991. David Letterman was celebrated at one of CBS’ regular upfront spectacles at Carnegie Hall, a decision that helped whet appetites
for his last few months on “Late Show.”

CBS isn't packaging the end of Colbert's show because there's no comedy or charm to package. The comedy has given way to political activism, and especially in Colbert's case, a weird form of entertainment best known as regime comedy. Colbert and his fellow late-night comics made defending Joe Biden and Democrats into the primary purpose of their shows; Jimmy Kimmel
even fronted for a doddering Biden at a fundraiser that later became
notorious when Barack Obama clearly had to guide a confused Biden off the stage.

The nadir of this decline came from Colbert himself, with his creepy "Vax- Scene" promotion of Biden government diktats on COVID vaccinations.
Remember this propaganda effort, intended to shut down questions about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines that Biden and his team had mandated
in the military, schools, and workplaces? Colbert just ignored all of that
-- and its attendant censorship by the federal government -- to dance with syringes in the cringiest moment ever on late-night television:


Colbert isn't alone in this, although he may have been the most shameless
about it. All of the network late-night comedy shows signed up for La Résistance in the first Trump term, and became increasingly strident in
their attacks on Republicans while ignoring or outright covering for
Biden, even while his incapacitation became obvious, at times in their presence. Late night stopped being about comedy a decade ago, and became
all about progressive-elite confirmation. Samantha Bee may have pioneered
the "clapter" genre, but Colbert et al embraced it passionately and fully.

This transition left the late-night genre increasingly dependent on a
rapidly narrowing demographic. Rather than adopt a broader approach to political satire, as Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and even David Letterman had
done in establishing the genre, every single late-night host went full SNL
or even beyond it. They stopped being funny, and what's more, they stopped being interesting. And in a world where fans can get their celebrity fixes
by following the accounts of their favorite stars, their guest chats
didn't hold much appeal, either.

Those are the reasons why CBS pulled the plug, and why all of the networks
have cut back on production over the past few years. They have reduced set costs, dropped Fridays, and done everything to stanch the cash bleed from
these expensive struggle sessions. CBS is just the first to throw in the
towel, letting Colbert finish out his contract but bailing out of the
genre otherwise. Eventually, late night will go the way of the comedy-
variety hour -- another great TV genre that died under the weight of the mediocrities who succeeded the geniuses.

Regime comedy is dead. And I feel fine.

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/07/18/its-the-end-of-regime-comedy- as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine-n3804902

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