Nearly all of us have that uncle who knows he is the funniest guy in the room. Unfortunately, he has to explain his own jokes, wait for the laughs, and hear crickets.
That is Stephen Colbert.
After a long decade of being our unfunny uncle, he repeats that act every night. Finally, at long last, CBS performed the act that most Americans have been steadily doing for years: pulling the plug.
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” airs its final episode in May 2026, marking the end of a decade of monologues that replaced comedy with exact moral instructions, revealing how Colbert and the left feel about us.
CBS is calling the cancellation a “financial decision,” but here in reality, we call it a mercy killing.
The Expiration Date of Self-Satisfaction
Colbert’s cancellation wasn’t because of a scandal. Instead, it was a death of a thousand cuts, moving him slowly towards undeniable irrelevance. His ratings were solid, keeping him on top with an average of about 2.4 million viewers in 2025—but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
For years, late-night talk shows have been a shadow of their former selves. I imagine Johnny Carson’s ghost walking around, wondering what the hell happened to all his hard work, building and maintaining an incredible relationship with his audience. All that was destroyed by Colbert, whose particular brand of smug partisanship didn’t sell well for those of us who live within miles of gravel roads.
He took his clever parody persona from “The Colbert Report” and evolved it into an over-serious, hyper-political lecture circuit, designed as entertainment.
Eventually, all the laughs stopped, and the audience yawned.
That’s when the execs started to sharpen the axe.
Leno and Carson Talked With You… Not at You
As I mentioned earlier, late nights used to be a different experience. Carson and Leno each sat behind the same desk that Colbert occupies. They treated their shows more like a fireside chat, inviting America in as they smiled and poked fun at everyone.
The goal was connection, never division.
Carson interviewed people from all walks of life—writers, politicians, farmers, and people with unusual interests. He listened, allowing the audience to catch their breath.
Jay Leno, for all of his middle-of-the-road style, had the same instinct: laugh with people, not at them.
Meanwhile, Colbert did the opposite. His dream was to be admired, not liked. He condescended instead of talking. Every one of his jokes was pre-loaded with a political jab or a cultural rebuke.
His late-night show wasn’t fun entertainment; it ended up as a 43-minute TED talk, but with the smirks, of course.
CBS Spent a Fortune to Lose Its Soul
Colbert’s paycheck reportedly hovered around $15 million a year. Now factor in his writing staff, his band, the Ed Sullivan Theater lease, guest bookings, production crews, and travel costs, and you’ve got yourself a costly scolding machine.
And it didn’t pay off. Ad revenue across late-night television has cratered since 2016, down 60 percent by some estimates. People aren’t watching. Sponsors aren’t paying. The content isn’t landing.
CBS already axed “The Late Late Show” in 2023. That was the canary. Colbert was the coal mine. And now they’ve cleared the shaft.
This wasn’t courage. It was accounting.
The Skydance Merger Didn’t Help
One major factor no one at CBS wants to say aloud: Colbert became a liability during a merger.
Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company, is in the middle of a complex merger with Skydance Media. Those deals require PR calm, internal unity, and no distracting wildcards. So when Colbert publicly criticized Paramount for its $30 million “60 Minutes” sexual harassment settlement, calling it “a big, fat bribe,” he poked the wrong bear at the wrong time.
That speech may have sealed his fate. Colbert treated “The Late Show” as a platform to call out his own bosses. They responded like any publicly traded company would, with a scalpel and a smile.
When the Clapter Runs Out
You can trace Colbert’s decline to one event: Trump’s departure from the White House. When Trump dominated headlines, Colbert had a villain to mock, a Goliath to sling nightly rocks at. The resistance crowd ate it up. But once Trump exited stage right and Biden shuffled in, the outrage furnace went cold.
Colbert tried to keep it going, with mock trials, Trump impressions, and grave monologues, but it all rang hollow. He even tried bringing back Jon Stewart. But the audience didn’t return. Because the emotional core of the show had died, it wasn’t funny. It was tired.
And how can we forget about this?
Without Trump, Colbert had no foil. And without a foil, he was just a guy shouting into a mirror.
Hollywood’s Favorite Lecturer
In Los Angeles and Manhattan, Colbert remained a hero. He said the right things. Wore the right buttons. Gave airtime to all the approved causes. He was their guy. But for middle America? He became unwatchable.
The irony is rich: here was a multimillionaire with a Manhattan soundstage, a full-time staff, and corporate sponsorship, preaching equity and justice while mocking the very people who once loved Letterman.
He lectured coal workers from behind LED lights and vegan craft services.
It was all so on-brand, it hurt.
Hollywood doesn’t care if you connect with the country. It cares if you check the boxes. Colbert checked them. But even that wasn’t enough to justify the cost.
CBS Wasn’t Brave. It Was Just Broke.
Let’s give no unearned credit here. CBS didn’t stand up for balance or re-center its programming to appeal to a broader audience. It did the same thing every bloated media company does when the money dries up: cut payroll.
This wasn’t about principle. It was about profits.
A network that once hosted legends is now quietly folding up the tent. No bold statements. No press tour. Just a quiet admission that the game is over and the audience has left the building.
Colbert will be fine. He’ll podcast. He’ll write books. He may even land on a streaming platform. However, the truth is that he got fired. Fired for being expensive, predictable, and forgettable.
Final Thoughts
Stephen Colbert’s final bow will be polite, teary, and full of legacy headlines. The media will praise him for “holding the line” or “bringing truth to power,” but those lines are about as stale as his monologues.
Because the real story is simpler: he was the uncle who thought he was hilarious, who stayed at the party too long, and who couldn’t tell the difference between clapter and comedy.
CBS finally got the nerve to show him the door. And just like that, the last smug sermon ended not with applause, but with budget cuts and indifference.
And honestly, that might be the funniest thing he’s ever been part of.
Mainstream Media’s So Full of It, We Should Charge Rent.
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