late show

While Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was preempted by a rerun of “Celebrity Family Feud,” continuing ABC’s indefinite suspension of the talk show, some of Kimmel’s late-night colleagues used their platform to sound off.

On “The Daily Show,” which airs on Paramount-owned Comedy Central and has rotating hosts, Jon Stewart suited up for emceeing duties outside his usual Monday slot. Desi Lydic had been hosting this week, but the comedian had something to say about the issues surrounding his friend Kimmel.

Stewart leaned heavy into irony from the start of the show, saying it is now the “all new, government-approved” version, and was introduced as the evening’s “patriotically obedient host.” Stewart frequently scolded the audience for laughing at his sarcastic pandering to the Trump administration. He said the show was being taped in the “crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City” and notes that “someone’s National Guard should invade this place, am I right?”

“I don’t know who this ‘Johnny Drimmel Live’ ABC character is, but the point is, our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech,” Stewart said. “Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smoke screen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principleless and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that. Not me, though, I think it’s great.”

Stewart and the correspondents then serenaded the president with an off-key tune filled with compliments and praises.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” briefly addressed the situation in his monologue Thursday night saying, “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on — no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he is a decent, funny and loving guy. And I hope he comes back.”

Fallon said he would continue his monologue “just like I normally would,” but the punchline of his jokes about Trump came with an announcer interrupting any possible slights with flattery.

Earlier in the day, the host had canceled a scheduled appearance at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in New York City, where he was set to join a panel titled “Staying on Brand”; organizers did not respond to a request for comment about the cancellation of his appearance.

Seth Meyers, host of NBC’s “Late Night,” also didn’t avoid the topic. He opened his segment “A Closer Look” on Thursday by cracking jokes about how anything negative he’s said about the president is an AI-generated deepfake. “I’ve always believed he was a visionary, an innovator, a great president and even better golfer,” he joked.

He proceeded to show clips from Trump’s recent trip to the U.K., poking fun at the president’s comments and protesters who rallied against his visit. But later in the segment, Meyers’ began to show clips of Trump touting his efforts to “stop all government censorship” and bring back free speech, before cutting to news clips about Kimmel’s suspension.

“Trump promised to end government censorship and bring back free speech, and he’s doing the opposite, and it has experts worried that we’re rapidly devolving into an oppressive autocracy in the style of Russia or Hungary, much faster than anyone could have predicted,” Meyers continued.

The host also commented on his personal relationship with Kimmel, saying it’s a “privilege and an honor” to be his friend, in the same way he feels privileged to host his own show. “I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we’re going to keep doing our show the way we’ve always done it, with enthusiasm and integrity,” he said.

“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” added David Remnick, the editor in chief of the New Yorker, to its lineup Thursday, which already included CNN journalist Jake Tapper. Colbert’s show generated its own headlines this summer when CBS announced the late-night talk show would be canceled after the season wraps in May 2026 — effectively ending the franchise after 33 years on the air. The decision, the company said, was due to financial reasons rather than a response to Colbert’s criticism of a deal between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, the network that airs “The Late Show,” as many have speculated.

Colbert used his vocal talents Thursday to sing a tune about the situation, presenting a short song as a message from ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney. The song was to the tune of “Be Our Guest,” the “Beauty and The Beast” classic — except the repeating refrain is “shut your trap.”

Colbert sings as an animated clip of the candlestick character Lumière from the movie plays, but he’s donning a red MAGA hat here. “Shut your trap, we’re warning you to cut the crap. Our dear leader’s skin is thinner than a sheet of plastic wrap,” he sings.”Mum’s the word, have you heard, kissing a— is what’s preferred. Don’t insult our great dictator or he’ll hit you with this turd,” the song continues as a photo of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appears on screen.

“The new rule at ABC: Don’t make fun of Donny T,” he sings. “So don’t you make a scene or mention Jeff Epstein, or your show will be scrapped — shut your trap.”

Colbert also spoke about the suspension in a monologue, reading a social media post from Carr that said “While this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.”

“You know what my community values are, buster?” Colbert asked. “Freedom of speech.”

Colbert discussed Kimmel’s situation with Tapper, who brought up the Department of Justice’s review of Disney’s deal to take a controlling stake in streaming company FuboTV, which brings up potential antitrust issues. Tapper questioned what Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, would do about Kimmel given that he has business before the Justice Department. “Is he going to poke the bear, Donald Trump, or is he going to ignore this great tradition we have in this country, of not acquiescing — of media, newspapers, comedians, television — not acquiescing to power?”

Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly is also scheduled to appear in an episode of “The Late Show” airing Monday; Kelly last appeared on the show last year ahead of the November 2024 presidential election, discussing border security and gun reform.

Earlier on Thursday, while taking part in a panel conversation moderated by the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, late-night veteran David Letterman, who once helmed “The Late Show” on CBS, described this week’s turn of events as “misery.”

“In the world of somebody who’s an authoritarian, maybe a dictatorship, sooner or later, everyone is going to be touched,” Letterman said. He first addressed what transpired with Colbert and the cancellation of “The Late Show,” alluding to political pressure as the real culprit, before addressing the decision to yank Kimmel’s show.

“I just feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct?” he said. “It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous. And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian — a criminal — administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works.”

With three decades in the late-night circuit, Letterman never shied from mocking presidents: “Beating up on these people,” he said, “rightly or wrongly, accurately or perhaps inaccurately, in the name of comedy — not once were we squeezed by anyone from any government agency, let alone the dreaded FCC.”

ABC carried out the decision to take Kimmel off the air Wednesday after the comedian and host made comments about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death during his opening monologue on Monday night.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said.

Kimmel has not yet commented publicly on the matter. But his show’s suspension quickly ignited fierce debate, with critics accusing ABC and its parent company, Disney, of capitulating to political pressure. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said Wednesday that his agency might take action against ABC because of Kimmel’s comments.

“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney,” Carr said on the Benny Johnson podcast. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

President Trump lauded Kimmel’s suspension in a post he wrote on his Truth Social media site: “Great News for America: The ratings challenged Jimmy Kimmel Show is CANCELLED.” (The show has not been canceled, but remains on hold.)

It’s also worth noting Kimmel’s outspoken daytime counterparts were mum on the issue. “The View’s” panelists did not address the Kimmel situation during Thursday’s episode. (“Good Morning America,” which is produced by ABC News, did mention the news of the Kimmel hiatus without additional commentary.)

Meanwhile, Kimmel’s fictional late-night competitor, Deborah Vance, has an opinion on the ordeal — or rather, actor Jean Smart does. She may only play a late-night television host on TV, but the “Hacks” actress was quick to share her thoughts on the decision to pull Kimmel from the air: “What Jimmy said was FREE speech, not hate speech,” Smart shared in an Instagram post. “People seem to only want to protect free speech when its suits THEIR agenda.” (Kimmel made a cameo in the recent season of “Hacks.”)

She went on to write: “Thought I didn’t agree at ALL with Charlie Kirk; his shooting death sickened me; and should have sickened any decent human being. What is happening to our country?”

The Emmys ceremony was about more than just glamour and excellence in television. The current heated political climate and the attack on cultural institutions on and off screen was also a flash point, even though much of it was bleeped for viewers.

During her acceptance speech after winning supporting actress in a comedy series, Hannah Einbinder of “Hacks” proclaimed, “F— ICE” at the end of her speech, denouncing the crackdown on immigrants across the country by the federal government.

Einbinder also mentioned Palestine in her speech and was among several actors, filmmakers and others who wore pins calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Megan Stalter, another “Hacks” cast member, carried a bag pinned with a note that said “Cease Fire.”

When the writing staff for HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” took the stage after winning for writing for a variety series, senior writer Daniel O’Brien said he and his colleagues were happy to be in the company of writers of late-night comedy “while it’s still the type of show that is allowed to exist.”

Television Academy President Cris Abrego paid tribute to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which was presented with the Governors Award last week during the Creative Arts Emmys. When he noted that CPB’s federal funding had been shut down by Congress and that CPB would shut its doors, the comment elicited a loud “boo” from the audience.

Hannah Einbinder, who won an Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy series, in the trophy room at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. She referenced ICE and Palestine in her acceptance speech.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

“CPB has been the backbone of American public media, giving us everything from ‘Sesame Steet’ to ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’ to ‘Finding Your Roots,’” he said. “In many small towns, those stations were not just a cultural lifeline to small towns across the nation, but an emergency alert system that families could count on.”

He continued, “When division dominates the headlines, storytelling still has the power to unite us. Television and the artists who make it do more than address society — they shape our culture. At times of cultural regression, they remind us of what’s at stake.”

Before presenting the award for talk show, Bryan Cranston took a swipe at West Point’s recent cancellation of the Sylvanus Thayer Award to Tom Hanks, who has been a frequent critic of President Trump. Although a reason for the cancellation was not given, the move was seen by pundits to be politically motivated.

Cranston said in his remarks that the hallmark of an exceptional talk show was to have intelligent conversations with a variety of guests, “from the learned and inspirational Neil deGrasse Tyson, to the degenerate and woke Tom Hanks.”

The award went to “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” which CBS is ending next year at the conclusion of its season. Although the cancellation was attributed to financial considerations, Colbert’s harsh criticism of Trump has also been blamed for the termination.

During his acceptance speech, Colbert said the show had initially been about love, but had evolved into a show about loss: “Sometimes you only know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it.”

He also said he hoped the show’s end would not bring an end to the late-night talk show tradition.

In her first interview since losing the election to President Trump and leaving office, former Vice President Kamala Harris told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” that her decision not to run for California governor was more “basic” than saving herself for a “different office” — which is to say, another run for president in 2028.

After years of being a “devout public servant,” Harris said in the interview, set to air Thursday night, she just doesn’t want to be “in the system” right now.

“Recently I made the decision that I just — for now — I don’t want to go back in the system,” she said. “I think it’s broken.”

She said that was not to take away from the important work being done every day by “so many good people who are public servants,” such as teachers, firefighters, police officers and scientists.

“It’s not about them,” she said. “But you know, I believe, and I always believed, that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that they’re not as strong as they need to be.”

She said she instead wants to travel the country and talk to Americans in a setting that isn’t “transactional, where I’m asking for their vote.”

Colbert said to hear Harris — whom he called “very qualified for the presidency” — say that the American system is broken was “harrowing.”

“Well, but it’s also evident, isn’t it?” Harris replied, to applause from the studio audience.

The interview came on the heels of Harris’ announcements this week that she is not running for California governor and is releasing a memoir about her short, whirlwind presidential campaign following President Biden’s decision to drop from the race, and it was a big get for Colbert in what appears to be his final chapter on late-night TV.

CBS, blaming financial concerns across late night, announced July 17 that the 2025-2026 season of “The Late Show” would be its last.

The announcement followed Colbert sharply criticizing Paramount Global’s $16-million settlement with Trump over a CBS News “60 Minutes” interview with Harris during the presidential campaign, which Trump accused the venerable news show of manipulating to make her look better.

Paramount Global was at the time seeking a major merger with Skydance Media and needed the Trump administration’s approval, which it ultimately got. Just days before the announcement that his show would be ending, Colbert described the “60 Minutes” settlement as a bribe to get the merger deal done.

All that caused many observers and allies of Colbert to speculate that the cancellation of the show was political in nature. The Writers Guild of America, for example, said the company appeared to be “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration.”

Trump said it was “not true” that he was “solely responsible for the firing of Stephen Colbert,” and that the “reason he was fired was a pure lack of TALENT” and that Colbert’s show was losing Paramount millions of dollars a year.

“And it was only going to get WORSE!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Paramount has said the decision was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” though some polling has suggested many Americans don’t believe the company.

It’s unclear whether Harris considered any of that in granting Colbert her first interview since leaving office. However, it would almost certainly not have been her only reason.

Colbert is liberal and seen as a friendly interviewer by Democrats.

During Thursday’s interview, the late-night host heaped praise on Harris. After saying it was “harrowing” to hear she feels the system is broken, he asked whether she was giving up fighting.

Harris said she was not.

“I am always going to be part of the fight,” Harris said. “That is not going to change.”

There’s a lot of schadenfreude on the right, and even more lamentation on the left, about the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

Donald Trump leads the schadenfreude caucus. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump crowed on social media. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!” (It is remarkable that a president who campaigned with a vow to end “cancel culture” is so uninhibited in his celebration of cancel culture when it’s on his terms.)

The lamentations from the left are just as exuberant, from the other direction. They hail Colbert as a heroic martyr for free expression and speaking truth to power. “Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country’s leader on TV without repercussions,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes declared.

In a sense, both sides essentially agree that Colbert was canceled because of his politics. The argument from the left is that this was unfair and even illegitimate. The illegitimate claim rests on the fact that CBS’s parent company Paramount has been trying to curry favor with the administration to gain approval for the sale of the network to Skydance Media. Shari Redstone, Paramount’s owner, approved a settlement of Trump’s dubious lawsuit against “60 Minutes” (which Colbert had criticized days earlier as a “big fat bribe”). Colbert’s scalp was a sweetener, critics claim.

I think that theory is plausible, given the timing of the decision and the way it was announced. If this was the plan all along, why not announce the decision at the 2025 upfronts and sell ads in tandem with the wind-down? That’s the way this sort of thing has been done in the past.

But Colbert’s critics on the right have an equally plausible point. Colbert made the show very political and partisan, indulging his Trump “resistance” schtick to the point where he basically cut the potential national audience in half. He leaned heavily on conventionally liberal politicians (tellingly, on the night he announced the news of his cancellation, his first guest was California Sen. Adam Schiff — a man who couldn’t get a laugh if you hit him in the face with a pie).

But both the left-wing and right-wing interpretations have some holes. The theory that this was purely a political move overlooks the fact that CBS didn’t merely fire Colbert, it’s terminating the iconic “Late Show” entirely and giving the airtime back to local affiliates. If they solely wanted to curry favor with Trump, they could have given the show to more Trump-friendly (funnier and popular with the young’ns) comedians such as Shane Gillis or Andrew Schulz. The show was reportedly losing some $40 million a year. Even if they hired someone for a quarter of Colbert’s $15- million salary, it would still be losing money.

On the right, many — Trump included — have pointed to the fact that Greg Gutfeld’s not-quite-late-night Fox show has better ratings than his competitors on the three legacy networks. That’s true, but it’s hardly as if Gutfeld is any less partisan than Colbert, Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon.

It’s also true that the titans of previous eras — Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien — tended to avoid strident partisanship. But the nostalgia-fueled idea that a more mainstream, apolitical host would garner similar audiences again gets the causality backward.

Those hosts were products of a different era, when huge numbers of Americans from across the political spectrum consumed the same cultural products. The hosts, much like news networks and newspapers, had a powerful business incentive to play it down the middle and avoid alienating large swaths of their audiences and advertisers. That era is over, forever.

Now media platforms look to garner small “sticky” audiences they can monetize by giving them exactly what they want. There’s an audience for Colbert, and for Gutfeld, but what makes the roughly 2 million to 3 million nightly viewers who love that stuff tune in makes the other 330 million potential viewers tune in to something else. The “Late Show” model — and budget — simply doesn’t work with those numbers.

Cable news, led by Fox, ushered in political polarization in news consumption, but cable itself fueled the balkanization of popular culture. Streaming and podcast platforms, led by YouTube, are turbocharging that trend to the point where media consumption is now a la carte (artificial intelligence may soon make it nigh upon bespoke).

The late-night model was built around a culture in which there was little else to watch. That culture is never coming back.

X:@JonahDispatch

Bad Bunny is booked and busy. (Now try saying that twice.)

On Tuesday night, the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican singer will make two back-to-back appearances on late-night television shows: “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC.

The 31-year-old artist is in the midst of his historic No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí residency at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan. The 30-night concert series is expected to generate $200 million to the local economy, according to the island’s promotional agency, Discover Puerto Rico.

Bad Bunny, who moonlights as an actor, is also promoting the long-awaited “Happy Gilmore 2,” a sequel to the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy, which will premiere July 25 on Netflix. He will play a golf caddy to Happy Gilmore (played by Sandler), an aggro-ex-hockey player turned golf phenom. Both Sandler and Bad Bunny are expected to appear on “Late Night With Seth Meyers.”

It’s an unusual move by the two competing networks to book the same guest on a single night, but as evening newscasts clash with fast-paced content on social media sites like YouTube or TikTok, perhaps the rules can be relaxed for a superstar.

Camaraderie across the TV aisle has grown in recent days, with multiple late-night hosts decrying the cancellation of Colbert’s program for what CBS has cited as financial reasons. News of this cancellation came days after Colbert criticized CBS’ parent company, Paramount, over the $16-million settlement of President Trump’s lawsuit stemming from a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

“And now for the next 10 months, the gloves are off,” said Colbert on Sunday night. His decade-long show will end May 2026.

Earlier this year, Bad Bunny co-hosted “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to promote his hit album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which remains on the Billboard 200 chart since its January debut. During the program, the two disguised themselves while busking in a New York Subway station, first performing a cover of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” then Bad Bunny’s single “Nuevayol.”

For those wondering how Bad Bunny will pull off this New York showdown, fear not: “Late Night With Seth Meyers” films its Tuesday program on Monday.

Bad Bunny will first appear as a guest on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS at 8:35 p.m. PST, followed by “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on NBC at 12:35 a.m. ET/PT.

President Trump is celebrating the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” on CBS — and calling for even more late-night hosts to be axed.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote Friday morning on Truth Social. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”

He added that Greg Gutfeld, who has a late-night show and co-hosts “The Five” on Fox News, “is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show,” referring to Jimmy Fallon.

Although “Late Night” is the top-rated late-night broadcast show, “Gutfeld!” draws a bigger audience.

Colbert, 61, has hosted the show for a decade and shared the news of its cancellation Thursday night, noting that he was made aware of the decision only the night before. “The Late Show” will end in May.

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS,” Colbert said. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”

CBS said the decision was “purely financial.” The cancellation comes after Colbert criticized the network’s parent company, Paramount Global, for settling a lawsuit filed by Trump last year over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. Colbert called the $16-million settlement a “big fat bribe” Monday night, noting that Paramount is awaiting federal approval for its $8-billion merger with Skydance Media.

Both branches of the Writers Guild called on New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James to investigate Paramount.

“Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society,” read a statement released Friday by the union.

Fellow late-night hosts have since criticized the show’s cancellation.

“Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS,” Kimmel wrote in an Instagram story, referencing the network hits “The Big Bang Theory” and “Young Sheldon.”

“I’m just as shocked as everyone. Stephen is one of the sharpest, funniest hosts to ever do it. I really thought I’d ride this out with him for years to come,” Jimmy Fallon posted in an Instagram story. “I’m sad that my family and friends will need a new show to watch every night at 11:30. But honestly, he’s really been a gentleman and a true friend over the years — going back to The Colbert Report, and I’m sure whatever he does next will be just as brilliant.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who called for an investigation into the Paramount settlement this month, suggested that the move was politically motivated.

“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,” she wrote Thursday night on X. “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

“If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was a guest on the show Thursday night.

Trump had called for Colbert’s termination in September.

“I briefly watched an interview of Stephen Colbert on highly government subsidized PBS, and found it fascinating for only one reason — Why would they be wasting time and the public’s money on this complete and total loser?” he wrote on Truth Social. “He is not funny, which he gets paid far too much to be, he is not wise, he is VERY BORING, and his show is dying from a complete lack of viewers.

“CBS should terminate his contract and pick almost anyone, right off the street, who would do better, and for FAR LESS MONEY,” he continued. “Or I could recommend someone, much more talented, and smarter, who would do it for FREE! The good news for Stephen is that the two DOPES on NBC & ABC are not much better than him!”

In a Variety interview published Wednesday, Kimmel shared his concerns about the Trump administration targeting him and his competitors.

“Well, you’d have to be naive not to worry a little bit. But that can’t change what you’re doing,” the ABC late-night host told the outlet. “And maybe it is naive, but I have the hope that if and when the day comes that he does start coming after comedians, that even my colleagues on the right will support my right to say what I like. Now, I could be kidding myself, and hopefully we’ll never find out. But if we do, I would hope that the outrage is significant.”

We seem to be in an era of endings. The end of ethical norms, of the rule of law, of science, of democracy, of Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast, possibly the world and the just-announced end of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” when the host’s contract runs out in 10 months — which may presage the end of late-night television, at least on CBS, which says it has no plans to replace him or keep the show.

“This is all just going away,” Colbert said in a statement taped Thursday.

Coincidentally, or not, Paramount Global, which owns CBS, is seeking regulatory approval from the Trump administration to sell itself to the Hollywood studio Skydance Media. (I’d never heard of it either.) An official statement, claiming that the “Late Show” cancellation represents “a purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night … not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount” (italics mine) is — however true it might be — just the sort of thing to make one say, “Pull the other one.”

“Other matters” would seem to refer to the merger and to Paramount’s recent payment of $16 million to settle a frivolous Trump lawsuit over the perfectly routine editing of a “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview that was somehow supposed to give Harris an unfair advantage in the 2024 election and to have caused her opponent “mental anguish” — a payment Colbert characterized in a monologue just a few days ago as a “big fat bribe”: “As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.”

Though he responded to his studio audience’s supportive boos saying, “Yeah, I share your feelings,” he was only kind to the network: “I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners,” Colbert said. “I’m so grateful to the Tiffany network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home.”

But there have been plenty of surrogates to draw connections, provide context and bite harder, especially in light of the departure of “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens and CBS News President Wendy McMahon. “Love you Stephen,” ABC host Jimmy Kimmel, posted on Instagram, “adding “F— you CBS and all your Sheldons.” (In January, ABC also settled a Trump suit for $16 million, over George Stephanopoulos erroneously saying that Trump had been found civilly liable of “rape.”)

Of the remaining late-night hosts, we may say that each is special in their own way. Colbert, 61, who has been at “The Late Show” for 10 years, is the most mature, professorial and philosophical — gentle, a gentleman, and at times a mock-gentleman, addressing his audience as “My fellow Americans,” or echoing Walter Winchell, “Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea,” or as “Ladies and Gentlemen.” He slaps himself in the face twice before every show to “be in the moment … [to] only do this for the next hour.” Though he may still kick up his heels during a monologue, as an interviewer he is composed and thoughtful and curious — and funny, to be sure — to the degree each conversation demands. A committed (liberal) Catholic, he co-narrated the English-language audiobook of Pope Francis’ “Life: My Story Through History,” with Franciscan Father John Quigley, at the same time, he’s a first-generation Dungeons & Dragons devotee, a lifelong reader of science fiction and a man of whom director Peter Jackson said, “I have never met a bigger Tolkien geek in my life.” (Jackson cast him as “Laketown spy” in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”) He’s a person who will quote Gandalf in a conversation on grief and loss with Anderson Cooper, or, on “The Friendship Onion” podcast with Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, a.k.a. Merry and Pippin, declare that after reading “The Lord of the Rings” after college, “I realized that Aragorn is the Apollonian model of manhood … The Hobbits are us. And we should love life as much as they do.”

And he knows a thing or two about Ronnie James Dio. And grew up on Mad magazine, where young minds were taught to recognize the deceptions and hypocrisies of politics, business and media.

Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” which he hosted from 2005 through 2014, had a huge cultural effect beyond the reach of any late-night host now, Colbert included. Because it ran on basic cable and not network television, and because Colbert hid within the character of a pompous conservative pundit, the show could take wild swings; to the extent it looked respectable, it was only a matter of irony. Colbert and Jon Stewart, on whose “The Daily Show,” where Colbert had earlier worked, staged a “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on the National Mall in Washington, which drew a crowd of more than 200,000; he ran for president twice and created a PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, “100 percent legal and at least 10 percent ethical.”

During its run, he (or his writers) gave the world “truthiness,” named 2006’s Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster, which defined it as “a truthful or seemingly truthful quality that is claimed for something not because of supporting facts or evidence but because of a feeling that it is true or a desire for it to be true.” Colbert was twice named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People. Ben & Jerry’s created an ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream, in his honor, and NASA dubbed a piece of exercise equipment for use on the International Space Station the “Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,” or COLBERT.

Testifying in character in 2010, before a House Judiciary subcommittee on legal status for immigrant farmworkers, he said, as if looking into 2025, “This is America,” he said, “I don’t want my tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian … My great grandfather did not travel over 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see the country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That’s the rumor, I don’t know if that’s true. I’d like to have that stricken from the record.”

The signature segment of “The Late Show” is the “Colbert Questionert” in which the host poses 15 questions “ergonomically designed to penetrate straight to the soul of one of my guests and reveal their true being to the world.” (It’s “a scientifically verified survey; I’ve asked several scientists and they assured me — yeah, it’s a survey.”) Designed to create comic and/or sincere responses, they range from “What’s the best sandwich?” (Will Ferrell: “Salami and grapefruit on rye, with a light sheen of mayonnaise.”) to “Apples or oranges?” (Colbert considers apples the correct answer, because you can put peanut butter on them.) to “The rest of your life in five words.” (Tom Hanks: “A magnificent cavalcade of color.”) Cate Blanchett took it lying on Colbert’s desk, as if in therapy. “What do you think happens when we die?” he asked. “You turn into a soup,” she replied. “A human soup.”

But it’s Colbert’s extended interviews and discussions, from “The Late Show” and elsewhere, posted online, that dig the deepest and reveal the most about him in the bargain: a much circulated conversation with Nick Cave from last year; a long talk with Anderson Cooper, after the death of his mother, both about grief and gratitude; an episode of “The Spiritual Life With Fr. James Martin, S.J.,” from a couple of weeks ago. (Colbert describes himself as “publicly Catholic,” not “a public Catholic.”) Such discussions perhaps point the way to a post-”Late Show” practice for Colbert, much as it became one for David Letterman, who passed the seat on to him. (He’s only the second host since the show’s premiere in 1993.)

As to the field he’ll be leaving next May, who can say? Taylor Tomlinson‘s “After Midnight” game show, which followed “The Late Show,” expired this week. Kimmel and Seth Meyers, who go as hard against Trump as does Colbert, and the milder Jimmy Fallon, seem for the moment safely fixed at their desks. Though new platforms and viewing habits have changed the way, and how much, it’s consumed, late-night television by its temporal nature remains a special province, out at the edge of things, where edgy things may be said and tried. (Don’t expect Colbert to go quietly into that goodnight.) Yet even as the No. 1 show in late night, “The Late Show” reportedly loses money. There’s something to that “financial decision,” I’m sure; it’s the “purely” that smells. We’ll see.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump posted on his vanity social media site, going on to say that he “hears” that “Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert.” Trump and Colbert could not be farther apart as humans. The president sells fear; he uses it as a club. But the TV host is sanguine.

“You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time,” Colbert is fond of saying, sometimes adding, “and the Devil cannot stand mockery.”

The shocking cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” is a sign that time is running out for one of TV’s most beloved formats.

The late-night talk show was invented in the 1950s as a way for networks to own their own programming rather than have it provided by sponsors. Now, amid shrinking audiences and a politically turbulent climate for free speech, the familiar desk-and-sofa tableau is in serious trouble.

CBS announced Thursday that the upcoming 2025-26 TV season for “The Late Show” will be its last. Executives blamed the cancellation on financial concerns felt across all network late-night shows. Last year, NBC cut “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” to four nights a week while “Late Night With Seth Meyers” cut its live band.

Still, industry veterans were bewildered by the timing.

It’s hard to imagine Paramount Global executives did not anticipate blowback from announcing the move days after Colbert blasted the company’s $16-million settlement with President Trump over CBS News’ “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. Colbert described the deal as a bribe during his Monday monologue.

Every move the company makes is now under a microscope as it tries to get the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump acolyte Brendan Carr, to approve an $8-billion merger with Skydance Media. Canceling the most watched late-night program hosted by one of Trump’s harshest critics will draw even more scrutiny.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), weighed in on X shortly after taping an interview on Colbert’s program.

“If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,” Schiff posted.

The Writers Guild of America also raised questions, saying the cancellation appeared to be a case of “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump Administration.”

One factor contradicting the theory is that Colbert, who has another year on his contract, will remain on the air through May. His commentaries have never been restrained by network executives over his 10-year run and that situation is not expected to change in his final season.

The poor optics may be a matter of contractual timing.

Paramount Global had to complete the deals with writer-producer teams in July for the upcoming “Late Show” season, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to comment.

Those deals typically run for a full year, but with the company’s intention to cancel the program — decided several months ago — the contracts being offered only ran through May, which tipped off the network’s plans.

When Colbert learned of the cancellation decision on Wednesday, he made the call to inform his staff and his audience the next day.

“Late Show” is said to be losing somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars a year as younger viewers have fled. Since 2022, the program has lost 20% of its audience in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49 age group, according to Nielsen data.

Ad revenue for “Late Show” in 2024 was $57.7 million, according to iSpot.tv, down from $75.7 million in 2022. “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on NBC and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC have also seen significant declines over that period.

CBS has already given up on one hour of late night due to financial pressure. Two years ago, it canceled its 12:35 a.m. “Late Late Show” program hosted by James Corden because it was losing money.

CBS came up with a lower-cost replacement with “After Midnight,” but that ended after two seasons as its host Taylor Tomlinson decided not to renew her deal. CBS is replacing it with a syndicated program, “Comics Unleashed,” from Byron Allen’s Entertainment Partners in an arrangement that will cost the network nothing.

Still, Paramount Global will find itself facing questions about why CBS did not seek ways to reduce the production costs of the program instead of just pulling the plug.

If CBS decides to continue programming the 11:30 p.m. slot, it will hard-pressed to approach the same audience levels that Colbert attracted.

CBS is giving up a popular culture touchstone, although in the current fragmented media landscape, the days of such hosts having massive sway over a large audience have passed.

Media analyst Rich Greenfield wrote that legacy media companies investing in expensive original programming outside of sports and news may be ill-advised as viewers continue to flock to streaming.

“Ending ‘The Late Show’ is the tip of the iceberg with massive programming and personnel cuts to come,” he said.

For decades, late-night TV served as the brand identity of the broadcast networks.

Jack Paar was the witty conversationalist that made Middle America feel like it was invited to a sophisticated Manhattan cocktail party. His successor, Johnny Carson, became a trendsetter in the 1960s, defining male coolness. He had his own clothing line. His dry monologue was often a gauge of the country’s political mood. An invitation to take a seat next to Carson after a stand-up set turbocharged the careers of many top comedians.

CBS was unable to compete with Carson for decades, trying and failing with the likes of Merv Griffin and Pat Sajak. When David Letterman became available after he was bypassed for the “Tonight” job at NBC, he came to CBS in 1993 and made the network a serious contender.

Letterman’s offbeat, sardonic brand of humor also gave a layer of hipness to CBS, which had long had a reputation for stodginess.

“Late Show With David Letterman” helped make late-night network TV a financial bonanza. While the proliferation of cable networks was cutting into audience share in the 1990s and early 2000s, the late-night habit still thrived, especially with its ability to reach young men, the most elusive demographic for TV advertisers.

As a result, late-night hosts became the highest-paid stars in the business. Letterman and Jay Leno were both earning in the neighborhood of $30 million a year until networks started trimming salaries 10 years ago.

But technology chipped away at the late-night talk show habit. When DVRs reached critical mass, consumers started to catch up with their favorite prime-time shows during the late-night hours.

The most painful blow came from social media. While online clips of the late-night shows draw hundreds of millions of viewing minutes, that doesn’t generate the same kind of ad revenue as TV. They also make showing up at 11:35 p.m. every night pointless.

“The networks cut up all of the best parts of the show, and by the end of the night you can see all of them on social media,” said one former network executive who oversaw late-night programs. “There’s no reason to even DVR it.”

Prime-time programs add millions of viewers through on-demand streaming after they air on the broadcast networks. Topical late-night shows don’t have the same shelf life.

While politics have long been an important element of late-night comedy, the emergence of Trump‘s political career in 2015 — and his ability to drive ratings and the national conversation — made him the dominant topic.

Where Carson, Letterman and Leno skewered both sides of the political spectrum, Trump’s ability to provide endless comedy fodder on a daily basis made him an easy, entertaining and ultimately one-sided target.

For years it worked. Ratings for Colbert — who made his bones on Comedy Central satirizing a reactionary talk show host — languished for the first two years after he replaced Letterman. Audience levels and ad rates surged in 2017 once Trump came into office and became Colbert’s muse.

But the country has become more politically polarized in recent years and the relentless lampooning of Trump has created a lane for “Gutfeld!,” a nightly Fox News talk show with a conservative bent.

While not technically a late-night show (it airs at 10 p.m. Eastern), “Gutfeld!” drew an average of 3 million viewers in the second quarter of 2025 according to Nielsen and has grown 20% since 2022.

The young men that used to make late night an advertiser magnet are now turning to podcasters such as Joe Rogan and others who can speak without the restraint of broadcast TV standards.

CBS said it is canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” at the end of the upcoming television season in May, a casualty of industry changes that have dealt a crippling blow to advertising revenue.

Colbert announced the news to his audience Thursday during a show taping in New York. In a clip posted to Instagram, crowd members gasped, then started booing. Colbert said he only learned of the move on Wednesday.

“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of the late show on CBS,” Colbert said. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”

Colbert has hosted the show for a decade. After a rocky start, Colbert found his sea legs and eclipsed longtime late night leader NBC with his signature humor and sharp takes on political and cultural hot buttons. Colbert has long been a star within CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, rising to fame on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

The decision to end a franchise that has helped shaped pop culture was stunning to some. CBS launched its late night block in 1993 with David Letterman.

“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” CBS Chief Executive George Cheeks and other top executives said in a joint statement. “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

David Ellison’s Skydance Media is waiting for federal approval to buy Paramount, an $8 billion deal that is expected to usher in a new wave of cost-cutting.

“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable,” said Cheeks, along with CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach and CBS Studios President David Stapf. “We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television.”

More than 200 people work on Colbert’s show and their fate, beyond next spring, is unclear.

“I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners,” Colbert said. “I’m so grateful to the Tiffany network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home. And of course, I’m grateful to you, the audience, who have joined us every night.”

This is a developing story.

La migra spread across MacArthur Park yesterday morning like a platoon ready for war.

Federal agents on horseback with a white steed in the middle trotted through a soccer field. Others dressed like they were ready for Fallujah walked across lawns that just minutes earlier hosted a kid’s summer camp. Humvees complete with gun turrets parked on Wilshire Boulevard.

A Black Hawk helicopter buzzed above.

It was meant to be a show of force. It was more of a farce.

The park was mostly empty thanks to social media posts that had been warning Los Angeles about the coming incursion since Sunday. A furious Mayor Karen Bass arrived, got on the phone with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino — who was strolling around while a photographer took glam shots — and told him to pull back. Activists showed up instead of the regular crowd to laugh at and film la migra and cuss them outta there.

It was like the climactic scene in “Blazing Saddles,” when incompetent villain Hedley Lamarr tried to invade a small town with the baddest of hombres besides him only to find a Potemkin village. The Non-Battle of MacArthur Park even had a “cowboy” (those quote marks are getting some serious “air” time as I write this)With his straw cowboy bat and rifle slung over his shoulder, Assistant Chief Border Patrol Agent David Kim seemed to be channeling his inner Alex Villanueva, the ex-L.A. County sheriff who wore Stetsons anywhere and everywhere in urban L.A. because he thought that showed power.

This was the Battle of the Photo Op. Written in D.C. and paid for by taxpayers.

For the past 30 days, President Donald Trump has laid siege to L.A. like a potentate trying to quash a far-away rebel province. Over 1,600 people detained, citizens and noncitizens alike. A parade of his lackeys — Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance, border policy advisor Tom Homan — parachuted in to lecture L.A. about how out of control it is and vow retribution. California’s senior U.S. senator, Alex Padilla, briefly handcuffed for daring to question Noem during a press conference.

Trump and his troupe keep squawking about getting “the worst of the worst,” but they’re mostly not. This operation doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between snatching an immigrant with a criminal record or a guy armed with a stockpile of tamales he’s trying to sell to make a living.

Masked men grabbing anyone and everyone in the fashion of paramilitary squads from countries we deem uncivilized. Straight-up invasions of workplaces and residential neighborhoods, parks and street corners. Thousands of members of the National Guard and hundreds of Marines called up.

What the city is weathering is supposed to be a warning to all other immigrant-friendly municipalities across the country: submit, or else.

Well, L.A. chose the something else. And Trump and his goons are getting more and more angry — and reckless.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks to the National Guard before their lunch at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles on June 12.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

People are scared, sure — even terrified. That’s part of Trump’s strategy, along with making life so miserable that he hopes Angelenos will turn on each other. Instead, they’re uniting and hunkering down for more. Support networks and neighborhood watchdog groups are blooming across the region. Everyone with a smartphone and a social media account is now a reporter, capturing la migra at its worst and letting the world know what’s really going on. Lawsuits are being filed. More and more average citizens are joining the resistance.

What’s happening reminds me of the concluding line Lisa Simpson sang when Springfield Nuclear Power Plant workers went on strike against Mr. Burns and his heavies:

They may have the strength, but we have the power.

I get it, America: You think what’s happening in L.A. will never come to you. And you sort of like seeing the big, bad City of Angels getting smacked around with promises of even worse things to come. There’s a reason sports fans chant “Beat L.A.” and not “Beat Salt Lake City” or even New York.

But what happened yesterday at MacArthur Park is a microcosm of Trump’s vision for the rest of the country: a massive show of nada that does absolutely nothing to make life better for Americans. A gigantic waste of money. Spectacle over substance. Venom for anyone who dares speak out.

That should concern anyone who cares about a functioning democracy. Including L.A. haters.

The last month of raids across Southern California has shown that when the going gets tough, Trump goes for the easy. Sure, the Department of Homeland Security and its toxic alphabet soup of agencies participating in Trump’s deportation deluge are churning out social media posts featuring grainy photos of some of the people they’ve caught along with their alleged crimes. But that’s a way to mask the reality that these people taken in raids are mostly not criminals. A Times analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law found that nearly 70% of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from June 1 through June 10 had no criminal convictions.

The sad irony about what happened yesterday in MacArthur Park is that if ever there was a place in L.A. that might have welcomed a helpful assist from the feds … it’s MacArthur Park.

As my fellow columnista Steve Lopez has written about for years, it’s a jewel of a green space with serious problems that city officials have allowed to fester over the decades and has made it a no-go zone for many Angelenos. Gangs have long extorted businesses in the neighborhood and terrorized everyone else — including immigrants. Too many unhoused people pass through with nowhere else to go. Drug use is as prevalent as sunbathing: When I walked through it earlier this year on the way to Langer’s for lunch, I saw a man smoke a meth pipe within eyesight of an LAPD officer who didn’t even blink.

But this wasn’t about saving MacArthur Park from the bad guys. Instead, the deployment of masked troops in tactical gear showed Trump and his berserkers only care about optics, up to and including a man on horseback leading his fellow cavalry in a straight line while holding an American flag as colleagues whipped out their smartphones. The charade looked like something out of a Western movie — American military subjugating yet another Native American tribe.

Federal immigration agents near MacArthur Park on July 7.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

More is going to come, most likely worse. Trump’s Bloated Bullplop Bill has allocated $170 billion to immigration enforcement. Homan is relishing the idea of increasing the number of ICE agents from 5,000 to 15,000 — as if all that migra will improve the economy or make up for the rise in taxes and loss in Medicaid that millions of American citizens will suffer in order to support an agency whose increased budget will put it above the military of most of the world’s countries.

Are you paying attention yet, America?

After the MacArthur Park action, Trump’s disciples proclaimed victory. Bovino bragged to Fox News reporter Bill Melugin — the de facto media stenographer for Trump’s migra mission — that he told L.A. Mayor Karen Bass during their phone call, “Better get used to us now, ’cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller went on Fox News later to thunder, “The Democrat Party’s objective is to flood the West with millions upon millions of illegals from the developing world” as footage of what happened earlier that day rolled next to him.

Big words from little men who act like they’re living some “Apocalypse Now” fantasy.

I preferred what L.A. councilmember Eunisses Hernandez — whose district encompasses MacArthur Park — said shortly after the sweep at a City Hall press conference, something as true as the sun rising in the east: “We are the canary in the coal mine. What you see happening at MacArthur Park is coming to you.”