On Thursday, CBS announced that it was going to cancel The Late Show With Stephen Colbert after Colbert’s contract ends in May 2026. The news comes at a politically fraught moment for CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global. It’s also the capper on the long arc of late-night political comedy, a genre Colbert was instrumental in building and which now, finally, appears to be on its last legs.

In a statement, CBS said its decision to end The Late Show — which began with David Letterman as host in 1993 — was “purely financial.”

“We are proud that Stephen called CBS home,” the CBS statement said. “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

That last line, that The Late Show’s cancellation has nothing to do with “other matters happening at Paramount,” seems directly aimed at tamping down speculation about CBS and Paramount Global’s political motivations for cancelling a decades-long fixture of network television.

Paramount Global is currently attempting to merge with Skydance Media, and company leadership has been acting as though they are concerned that President Donald Trump might try to block the merger. Earlier this month, CBS and 60 minutes announced a $16 million settlement in its lawsuit with Trump over the editing of a segment about former Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris — an extraordinary concession for a media company in a case that experts agree CBS would have likely won in court. The longtime executive producer of 60 Minutes also resigned earlier this year, citing threats to his journalistic independence.

Days before the cancellation, Colbert said on his show, “I am offended” by the settlement. “I don’t know if anything — anything — will repair my trust in this company. But, just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help,” he quipped. The payout, he added, was a “big fat bribe.”

Colbert’s ousting feels symbolic, not just of CBS’s apparent decision to bow down to Trump, but of the end of late-night political comedy as a genre.

Two days........

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