CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Colbert’s replacement is Byron Allen

Thank you, Stephen Colbert

Meanwhile, late night just got a little darker

By Nancy Ford

Earlier this year, the mega-media conglomeration Paramount Global settled a lawsuit with Donald Trump. Trump claimed in the suit that CBS had unfairly edited a 60 Minutes interview to help Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election. Trump received $16 million from that settlement, shortly before Paramount merged with Skydance Media in a multi billion-dollar deal that required approval from Trump himself.

Pretty slimy, right? Stephen Colbert agreed.

“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. I don’t know if anything — anything — will repair my trust in this company. But, just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help,” the late-night talk show king joked after the settlement was reached.

CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Colbert’s replacement is Byron Allen

Stephen Colbert / Image via Cinemablend.com

Seemingly moments later, CBS cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Even slimier, right?

Lord, I’ll miss this show.

I’ll miss all of it: Colbert’s intelligence. His timing. His weird, elfin ear that plays something of a supporting role.

I’ll miss his stealth-like attacks on our government’s corruption, absurdity and hypocrisy.

I’ll miss holiday-themed visits from Evie McGee Colbert, his beautiful and charming wife. If CBS were smart, the network would give Evie her own show. Missed opportunity there, Ms. Weiss.

Who, you may ask, is Ms. Weiss? Bari Weiss. She’s CBS News’ newish Editor-in-Chief, a right-leaning mouthpiece who gifted Trump with The Late Show’s cancellation.

Weiss was told by Skydance Media chief David Ellison to “modernize” CBS and reach the “majority of the country” through more “balanced and fact-based” reporting. Translation: Be nice to Trump because, money.

Colbert’s replacement is Byron Allen, a B or maybe C-list stand-up comic whose syndicated show Comics Unleashed has followed The Late Show for a few seasons. The show features current road comics uncomfortably wedging bits of their sets into a roundtable conversation about … I don’t know because I’ve never watched it. The “majority of the country” probably has never watched it, either.

Keep in mind, CBS claimed The Late Show was cancelled because it wasn’t profitable. But Byron Allen is? That’s the first time anything having to do with Byron Allen made me laugh.

When Colbert departs, I’ll switch to ABC to watch Jimmy Kimmel Live!

I’ve been a Kimmel fan stretching all the way back to The Man Show, an early 21st century horror of a comedy sketch show. Its most memorable claim to fame was featuring women in bikinis bouncing on trampolines.

Stupid? Yes. Offensive? Yes, again. Satire? Absolutely. The trampoline bit was the perfect inclusion for a program called The Man Show — by parodying the show’s entire essence with the very images of what made it so dumb.

Like a fine wine served with an off-brand hot dog, Kimmel has aged considerably well since debuting Live! in 2003. His battle with censorship, once even resulting in a week’s suspension, has earned him Culture Warrior God status.

In December 2025, the great David Letterman called Kimmel “the leader of the resistance.”

“People like you and people like Stephen [Colbert] and people like Seth [Meyers] do such a masterful job of this defending democracy. Thank God for you, thank God for others, SNL and everybody else. I think it’s the way things need to be in a democracy that’s seemingly this crippled,” Letterman told a noticeably emotional Kimmel.

Appropriately absent from Letterman’s list of late-night heroes was Jimmy Fallon, the tepid host of NBC’s The Tonight Show. Fallon will be remembered primarily for the time he gleefully tossled Trump’s hair in an appearance before the 2016 election. Many believe this infantile stunt helped propel Trump to the White House, by “humanizing” him.

In a June 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Fallon admitted that the hair segment was a mistake … sort of. “I’m sorry if I made anyone mad,” he groveled.

Reminder: Any time an apology includes the word “if”, it’s not an apology.

Notably, Kamala Harris did not sue NBC over Fallon’s Trump-tastic stunt. She should have.

I’ll be watching when the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs May 21, probably with a wet tissue in one hand and a stiff drink in the other.

Chances are good that one of his last guests will be Chef Jose Andres, whose charitable World Central

Kitchen has been gifted well over $1 million by Colbert’s show. Over the years, Colbert has also contributed millions to City of Hope, Habitat for Humanity, Yellow Ribbon Project, Amnesty International, Autism Speaks and other upstanding, worthy organizations.

Maybe Colbert’s grateful viewers should thank him for his generosity — the millions of laughs — with a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

Now, that would really tossle Trump’s hair.

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