CBS Cancels Colbert — Left-Wing Conspiracy Theories Follow
[The Right] saw a fading genre getting one last round of applause before the curtain fell, and a Democratic Party so deep in its echo chamber, it probably thinks canceling a late-night show is a threat to democracy.
In a surprise move, CBS has announced the end of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, bringing the long-running franchise to a close in May 2026. The network insists the decision is purely financial, but that hasn’t stopped some Democrats from suggesting a more sinister motive.
“The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” CBS brass said in a statement. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time. 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.”
Colbert … said that he was grateful to CBS for giving him the chair. “I’m not being replaced, this is all just going away,” Colbert said.
The reaction in the studio was swift, according to ABC.
The late-night host’s announcement was met with boos from the audience. “Yeah, I share your feelings,” Colbert said, going on to thank the network and the show’s more than 200-person crew for their longstanding commitment to the program.
CBS executives made clear the decision wasn’t about politics, content, or ratings.
“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” George Cheeks, the president of CBS and co-chief executive of Paramount, CBS’s parent company, wrote in a press release. “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
The announcement comes as CBS and its parent company, Paramount, face increased scrutiny over their restructuring plans, including a high-profile shareholder lawsuit challenging the Skydance Media merger. The suit alleges that Paramount’s leadership ignored better offers and rushed into the Skydance deal to preserve their own power. The timing of Colbert’s cancellation — in the middle of executive shakeups and mounting legal pressure — added fuel to the fire for conspiracy theorists on the left.
Still, the most eyebrow-raising reactions came from two U.S. Senators. Both Adam Schiff and Elizabeth Warren jumped to Colbert’s defense, suggesting the cancellation may have been politically motivated, despite CBS repeatedly denying any such link.
Just finished taping with Stephen Colbert who announced his show was cancelled.
If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.
— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) July 17, 2025
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.
America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.
Watch and share his message. pic.twitter.com/Rz7HcWFLYM
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2025
Their comments quickly became the center of online backlash, as conservatives mocked the idea that a decade-long, high-paid run on network television amounted to some sort of political persecution.
They ended it because you became the typical guest on Stephen Colbert instead of jokes and comedy https://t.co/FP9ppRGVgn
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 17, 2025
R U OK
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) July 18, 2025
Release the Colbert files!!! https://t.co/xQ8YVfWxqh
— LB (@beyondreasdoubt) July 18, 2025
Oh wow Dems are really running with this cancel Colbert / Paramount settlement conspiracy.
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) July 18, 2025
The reaction from the left painted Colbert as a truth-teller being silenced. The reaction from the right? They saw a fading genre getting one last round of applause before the curtain fell, and a Democratic Party so deep in its echo chamber, it probably thinks canceling a late-night show is a threat to democracy.
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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-
Whi is Colbert?
Why indeed.
indeed … I only remember
Johnny Carson
Jay Leno
and they were actually funny
and of course Jack Paar
but I wasn’t allowed to stay up that
late unless it was Friday and so
no school.
I only saw Jack Paar a few times for the same reason.
The name escapes me, but one of those shows had a guy who used to put on a velcro suit and run at a velcro board and stick to it. It was hilarious.
Letterman? He was funny when he was starting out, but his ego quickly swamped his talent.
His bitterness over not getting The Tonight Show destroyed his ability to be funny. He was always mean especially to the non-celebrity guests. Mean can be funny to a point. Real bitterness is not funny.
I never found Letterman to be funny, just rude, smug & condescending.
Case in point: check out the YouTube of Marty Stuart playing on the show:
https://youtu.be/Cx_l9kLxycw
Of course, the choice of songs is lost on David and Marty & Kenny bring the house down.
Letterman had one of the funniest skits ever but I am sure legal squashed it because you cannot find it anywhere. It was Bert and Ernie with Bert all over the place and Ernie telling him “your on crack aren’t ya Bert”
Bert and Ernie are gay. Seriously.
I’m more surprised to learn he hadn’t been sacked years ago.
That they were paying him millions is the dumb thing.
“I’m not being replaced, this is all just going away,” Colbert said.
Yep. But as with any leftist, just going away is the hardest part. They are sooooo enamored with themselves that they can’t fathom that they no longer serve a purpose.
He ruined it so much that they can move forward. Even a new host can’t fix it.
Elizabeth Warren is on the case. That’s a relief (s).
I apologize that the stupid people in my state keep electing this harridan and the other clown Markey,
“America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”
I confess. It was, and I did it. It was all me. Fear me, Liawatha!
How cancelled is he?
Well he’s not off until next May. If they really wanted to cancel him, he would be gone today.
He is so cancelled that…
(Sorry. I never wrote for Carson. I’m sure they would have written something hysterically funny in reply.)
He’s so cancelled that he’s been replaced by the Milli Vanilli Hour.
(holding envelope to forehead): “Two backhoes and a woodchipper!”
When the Must-See Late Night talk show lineup used to be Carson followed by Letterman (1982-92) I used to stay up JUST to watch both of them.
Carson was the Classic Entertainment – oriented outlet – typical guests were actors, comics, bands and singers, 15-minutes of fame ordinary people, just famous folks people wanted to see. The occasional political guest or joke was never some sort of diatribe – the goal was To Entertain.
Letterman was the quirky funny guy who surprised you into laughing – sorta anti-establishment without ever being mean about it.
Both of them were on-air hosts for 3 decades – and arguably still worth watching the day they retired.
Colbert became a one-trick pony – who only lasted a single decade – and was tedious to watch repeat that same trick (Lefty Politics) after several years unless you were already a member of the choir he was preaching to. It’s no coincidence that Adam Schiff was his Big Guest the day he announced his coming forced cancellation.
The first two never wore their politics on their sleeve like a brassard to show off affiliation – Colbert did nothing but. And heralded in a glut of other one-trick pony hosts who visibly despise half their potential audience.
There was always a element of meanness in Letterman. He was always awful to the Chefs that came to do cooking segments he never followed along he just acted link and ass. He also made fun of the off beat people that collected buttons or whatever. I never really understood why they had those people on since it was clear Letterman didn’t want to talk to them.
Granted Johny was always nicer to his guests than Dave – I probably should have instead said “letterman was never too mean” because – like Don Rickles – he had a bit of bite to him. His classic “man on the street” interviews in particular were a bit unkind but funny because of it. Most of his best schticks were a bit dada-ist – who else would have had a regular “throwing stuff off of tall buildings” regular feature?
Letterman really did sour notably as his reign extended. He started off the same funny guy he had been before the show. It lasted a little while, then he just turned the snide up to 11.
It’s okay, I am sure Colbert can get a show on NPR!
CCN’s new counter programming to Gutfeld!
I hope this doesn’t happen.
I think the would be a good opportunity for Colbert to annoy his family, if he has one, and leave the rest of us out of it.
Hope a Fed judge doesn’t undo the cancellation. 😉
Colbert fans are petitioning Judge Judy as we speak.
A crew of only around 200?
Wow. I figured it would take at least 2,000 to provide that big a pile of s___ on a nightly basis.
as the tax payers gravy train slowed down or stopped
it seems that the real fear is that sneaky payments from the gov/tax payers to other entities might also face a similar fate ( pbs/npr) and that too can be playng a yuggge factor in some of the corporate welfarists decisions
universities showed that to be true
so the left applauded the censoring the outright censoring of a differing political pov but when THEIR OWN PEOPLE shut them off ….its the orangeman who is the guilty party
and thats just another reason why they can take their faux epstein outrage and shove it
This seems like the logical outcome — unable to continue when revenue is not generated. But why now, after all these years with the ratings in the basement?
Funny thing is this comes a couple of months after Trump shut down the USAID and its funding…. but that’s just crazy conspiracy talk.
Ironic that the only time Colbert was remotely funny is when he was playing a conservative (The Colbert Report).
Yup, I’m a conservative myself but his early conservative parody schtick usually made me laugh .
It’s too easy to parody a Leftist target, because as south Park and the Babylon Bee proved, today’s parody of a Lefty is tomorrows straight news report.
Usually best not to gloat, but there are always exceptions and this is certainly one, as will Kimmel, who should be replaced with Adam Carolla.
just get back to girls jumping on trampolines
Speaking of Kimmel:
“Jimmy Kimmel has rushed to back fellow left-wing talk show host Stephen Colbert, letting loose with a spray of foul-mouthed invective as the latter faces the demise of his eponymous Late Show.
Kimmel went to social media Thursday to cry for his fellow Republican-hater, ”Love you Stephen. Fuck you and all your Sheldons CBS”
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/07/18/jimmy-kimmel-lashes-out-at-cbs-for-canceling-colbert-fk-you/
Forgive the gloating, please.
Kimmel is butthurt that Colbert was cancelled, Hopefully he’s next. Then the rest of them.
Never watched Colbert. Always found him insufferable. All the late night show hosts are insufferable. They are all political activists now, Why would anyone to the right of Schift for brains or the fake Indian go on their shows.
I have enough trouble looking at a still image of Schiff. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to watch him in motion, flapping his jowls.
Presumably everyone is watching Gutfeld. It’s political but very smart and funny as all-get-out at times, for those who aren’t yet.
Corporations regularly do (political) favors for politicians when the pols control something the corporations want. This is how it works in America, and usually Dems are just fine with it. At worst, this is what happened here. Note there was zero concern from them that CBS allowed Colbert to turn the show into an arm of the DNC. That political favor was perfectly OK with the Dems. (Should that be investigated? Of course not! Dems will say it would be a complete waste of time. And they’d be correct.)
The Dems need to get over it.
Dude was actually funny for a very short while on the Daily Show. Even had Toby Keith as a guest and ribbed both party guests.
He milked that for way more than it was worth, showed his true colors, and the market spoke accordingly.
I think it’s funny, CBNS can no longer keep their dead wood employed.