CBS has cancelled The Late Present With Stephen Colbert. Colbert introduced the information—which has since been confirmed by Deadline and Selection—on to his studio viewers in the course of the taping of tonight’s (July 17) episode. “Earlier than we begin the present, I wish to let one thing that I discovered simply final evening. Subsequent yr might be our final season. The community might be ending The Late Present in Could,” he stated in a section that has been posted to each his and the present’s official Instagram accounts. Watch Colbert’s full message beneath.
“The Late Present With Stephen Colbert will finish its historic run in Could 2026 on the finish of the printed season. We contemplate Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and can retire the Late Present franchise at the moment,” reads an announcement shared with a number of media shops, together with The New York Instances, and credited to CBS executives together with CBS president and CEO and Paramount International co-CEO George Cheeks. The community additional explains the cancellation as “purely a monetary resolution towards a difficult backdrop in late evening.”
The Late Present’s inception got here in 1993, when David Letterman was handed over in favor of Jay Leno to succeed Johnny Carson as host of NBC’s The Tonight Present. Letterman’s 22-year tenure yielded a few of late-night TV’s most enduring musical moments. After being recognized with most cancers in 2002, longtime good friend Warren Zevon gave his remaining reside efficiency on Letterman, the place he performed “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” And in 2011 and 2014, respectively, TV on the Radio and Future Islands delivered two definitive weblog period relics with their Late Present renditions of “Wolf Like Me” and “Seasons (Ready on You).”
Colbert assumed the Late Present mantle from Letterman in 2015. Below his tenure, the Ed Sullivan Theater performed host to a variety of pop stars, up-and-coming indie acts, and established legends, amongst them—within the final two years alone—Mannequin/Actriz, Wednesday, Pavement, Father John Misty, Arooj Aftab, Kacey Musgraves, Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy, Bikini Kill, Jessica Pratt, Billie Eilish, Tyla, Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman, De La Soul, and André 3000. Jon Batiste additionally served as Colbert’s bandleader till his departure in 2022.
