We’re nearing the end of an era for late night, with just over a month to go until CBS’ Late Show cancellation is made complete. Stephen Colbert’s swan song episode is hitting the 2026 TV schedule on May 21, after which the network will replace the esteemed talk show with another hourlong, Byron Allen-produced comedy series, giving the mega-producer the full two-hour late night block that was once held down by the likes of David Letterman and Craig Ferguson. As one might imagine, Letterman isn’t exactly applauding CBS’ efforts.
As the creator of The Late Show, David Letterman obviously has a vested interest in the general topic of late night, even if he’s got little skin in that game at this point. (He’d since taken his interviewing skills to Netflix, where My Next Guest… is still going strong.) During a recent installment of The Barbara Gaines Show, the Emmy winner shared his take on CBS’ choice for filling the Late Show slot, calling it a money-saving tactic. In his words:
They don’t want to spend any money, so they’re going to make money. They charge Byron Allen some reasonable price. He sells all the advertising for his Comics Unleashed and it’ll be, I think, 90 minutes or two hours of comics talking about funny stuff.
CBS will start airing back-to-back episodes of Comics Unleashed in the 11:30 p.m. ET time slot starting on Friday, May 22, followed by an hour of another Byron Allen-produced series, Funny You Should Ask. The latter was created in 2017 for syndication, hosted by Jon Kelley and featuring a revolving panel of comedians, while Comics Unleashed initially ran from 2006-2016 before returning in 2023, and getting reworked again for 2025.
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Considering CBS execs blamed the Colbert cancellation on the show's expenses and lost profits — a claim Jimmy Kimmel has called B.S. — it's not exactly shocking that choices were made to fill the timeslot with a preexisting concept that wouldn't require the building of brand new sets or the hiring of all-new crews. It's unclear at this point if the network will stick with this money-saving move for years on end.
To be fair, David Letterman was being more critical about CBS than Allen or his shows, and he even paid the comic/producer's creations a compliment.
The show is a pretty good idea. It’s all panel. Nobody’s doing any standup except they’re seated doing standup.
Byron Allen's shows will be a complete flip from The Late Show. Colbert has long held to a political bent as host, stemming from his years on The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. Meanwhile, Allen has often made a point to keep Comics Unleashed as free as can be from topical, hot-button subject matter, so that episodes airing in syndication won't feel immediately dated.
David Letterman is no stranger to Byron Allen, either. He shared that they actually first worked together around 50 years ago, when Allen was a scrappy underaged talent, saying:
When he was a kid, like 14, he and I were together with a group of people who wrote for Jimmy Walker. I always thought, ‘This is great. Here’s a kid who’s interested in show business. . . . His mother would drive him to these writers meetings.
Decades later, Byron Allen became a legitimate billionaire who has, in the past, put in bids to buy BET from Paramount, as well as to buy ABC, FX and more from Disney. Will this timeslot takeover be the first step on the path to Allen attempting to purchase CBS? Funny I should ask...
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs weeknights at 11:35, with that final episode coming on Thursday, May 21. We probably shouldn't expect anything over-the-top from that final hour, but one can hope.
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