There’s been a bunch of back and forth when it comes to why the Late Show was canceled at CBS. If you were to ask those close to the network, the loss of millions of dollars a season was the main factor involved. If you were to ask fellow late night host Jimmy Kimmel, Trump’s been mad about late night (which has been confirmed), and that’s the bigger reason behind the decision. Lending into this, there have been additional rumors Stephen Colbert was being muzzled due to politics. Whether due to bloated budgets or cronyism remains a question, but we do know a lot of people lost their jobs when The Late Show went off the air late last week.
In fact, a large swathe of people are out of work or looking for work as the late night CBS series wrapped. The cast got together right as the Eye Network series was saying goodbye, and it turns out a huge number of people work behind the scenes on the talk series. CNN’s Brian Stelter shared the post as the show was wrapping up:
One of the great group shots of "The Late Show" staff posing on stage: pic.twitter.com/L2oknhvyosMay 22, 2026
That's a huge number of people! To make matters even more dire, Stephen Colbert said the network was not really letting the show go peacefully and positively. Instead everyone had to be out of the building, and out of the building fast, with everyone coming back the next week to clear stuff out. It almost feels more like a firing situation than a big, beautiful sayonara. To me, that makes tension feel palpable, but perhaps I’m reading into things.
One thing that has been cited in CBS’ defense is the fact advertising dollars are down significantly over the last several years, as more and more people cut cable and use YouTube and social media platforms to watch shows like Late Night, The Tonight Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Those platforms don’t yield nearly as much money for the networks as their own sponsored ads do.
In fact, previously we reported that late night had garnered $439 million in earnings back in 2018. By 2024, that number was only $220 million.
So, there is something to be said for CBS’ official statement on the matter, which was the decision to cancel The Late Show was “financial.’ Insiders said the show was “losing money left and right,” and it’s hard to cut a major swathe of staff or other budget money and to still produce an a-tier, network TV-level production.
In some ways, it sounds like the network was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and this photo of the staff on the last day sort of goes a long way to explain a lot of that bloat we’d heard over the last few months. It's still sad though, because it's a picture of people who showed up every day and had landed a high level job. These are people with a desire to make great content. The worst part is they were successful at it; it's just the circumstances that were wrong.
To me, The Late Show ending is devastating. I knew in my lifetime that eventually Stephen Colbert would be stepping away from the gig, but I don’t think I really understood a future where there would be no Late Show on the 2026 TV schedule. Maybe that makes me naive, but it’s comforting to think of certain pop culture icons as monoliths, and it’s heartbreaking when it all goes away.
