Everyone knows that Stephen Colbert and CBS's "Late Show" franchise are officially saying goodbye this month. But nobody really knows what happens next.
For the past 10 months, since a frustrated Colbert announced the cancellation of the three-decade-old talk show in July 2025, the countdown to his farewell has been looming over Colbert and the whole of the late-night genre like a guillotine with a threadbare rope. Now there are mere days left until the May 21 finale (which will air without any competition from his peers), and only uncertainty looms on the other side of Colbert's farewell.
Even though CBS announced that comedy series "Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen" will take over Colbert's 11:35 pm weeknight slot on the network after "Late Show" concludes, it's unclear if that is a temporary or long-term solution. And as Colbert's colleagues Jimmy Fallon (NBC's "The Tonight Show"), Jimmy Kimmel (ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!") and Seth Meyers (NBC's "Late Night") resume their normal routines in a world without Colbert's nightly voice, will they be waiting for the blade to fall on their own necks?
"It does feel like the end of an era," says Jason Lynch, curator at The Paley Media Center. "For decades, it seemed unfathomable that late night as we know it would ever cease to exist. Now, it’s fair to speculate if the current group of late-night hosts will be the very last people to ever have those jobs."
