Stephen Colbert's Next Talk Show Appearance Is Another Sign Of How Far We've Come From Late Night Wars

For now, and for the next several months, fans shouldn't expect any major shake-ups in the world of late night talk shows. (Barring any extreme 2025-esque incidents.) But when May rolls around, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will exit the 2026 TV schedule, paying off on CBS' decision to cancel Colbert's show back in July. It sounds like we’ll be seeing more good-natured camaraderie among the host and others in the interim, which is on the opposite end of the spectrum from where the format was 30-35 years ago.

As The Late Show continues to mostly win out over the competition in the ratings, Stephen Colbert will be making the jump to NBC to visit Late Night with Seth Meyers for the first time in well over a decade. Fans can expect to see the two comedy stalwarts sharing the Late Night stage on Tuesday, January 27.

Just how long ago was the last time Colbert promoted something on Seth Meyers’ show? Well, he hadn’t hosted any Late Show episodes yet, and was in fact still months away from ending his run on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. It happened on September 2, 2014, at a point when Meyers had only been hosting the show for around six months. It’ll look a little different this time around, without Fred Armisen’s band around anymore, but should be a fun time that no doubt reflects on the challenges that 2025 brought

According to LateNighter, the schedule is set so that Stephen Colbert will travel the five blocks early on Monday to get his Late Night appearance recorded before jetting back to the Ed Sullivan Theater to get that night’s episode knocked out. The timing is largely due to Seth Meyers taping back-to-back episodes to air across the Monday and Tuesday nights.

Can you imagine back in the early ‘90s, during the height of David Letterman and Jay Leno’s late night feud, that either of them would have acquiesced to record an appearance on the other’s show? Anytime a rivalry is big enough to spark both a best-selling book AND a TV movie adaptation, it’s not a great sign. Those were cutthroat times, and even last year, Leno voiced his belief that meeting up with Letterman now would be awkward.

Obviously, none of the current crop of late night hosts have anywhere near the amount of baggage that sparked the late night wars, with Conan O’Brien being arguably the last host with a justifiable grudge due to his Tonight Show screwjob. (At least until Colbert’s cancellation, obviously.) To the point where Colbert not appearing on Meyers’ show for 12 years is more of an exception than the norm.

For instance, Stephen Colbert showed up on Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in September 2025, and also spoke at Conan O’Brien’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony months prior. He also showed up for CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live telecast with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, but that’s a different kind of late night experience.

On the flip side, Seth Meyers dropped by The Graham Norton Show in 2025, and appeared twice on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the same year, once as a guest (in May) and then as a special surprise for Colbert’s episode in September. He was a Late Show guest for the Halloween episode, but also appeared with tons of other celebs in Colbert’s first episode post-cancellation announcement. Check out a clip from that Halloween ep below!

Meanwhile, Jimmy Kimmel guested on both The Late Show and The Late Show Pod Show in January 2026, four months after his previous appearance. (His first time making the jump to CBS for Colbert’s show was in 2015.) He’s only been on Late Night with Seth Meyers once, with that episode airing in 2024.

Also worth noting in this context, Meyers is also the only one to appear on The Tonight Show in 2025. Colbert hasn’t been on opposite Jimmy Fallon since 2015. And yet Fallon also popped up for that all-star Late Show episode in July. I bet we’ll see those two crossing paths at least once before May.

Don’t forget to check out Stephen Colbert on Late Night with Seth Meyers airing on NBC on Tuesday, January 27, at 12:35 a.m. ET.