If you’ve checked the trades lately, you probably saw the shocker: CBS is pulling the plug on The Late Show franchise in May 2026. It’s the end of a 33-year run that started with David Letterman’s gap-toothed grin and ends with Stephen Colbert’s hyper-literate nerd-energy. But here’s the weird part. Colbert is actually winning. He’s the number one guy. Usually, when a show gets the axe, it’s because nobody is watching, but looking at Colbert ratings over time, the story is way more complicated than just a simple "decline."
It’s about money, sure. But it’s also about how we watch TV now.
When Colbert took over in 2015, he was a massive question mark. Could the guy who played a blowhard conservative pundit on Comedy Central actually be himself at 11:35 PM? Initially, the answer seemed to be "maybe." His early numbers were okay, but he was getting dusted by Jimmy Fallon’s playground antics. Then 2016 happened. Politics became the only thing anyone talked about, and Colbert—who is basically a walking political encyclopedia—finally found his footing.
The Trump Bump and the Rise to Number One
For the first year or so, Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show was the undisputed king. Fallon was averaging over 3 million viewers while Colbert was stuck in the low 2 millions. Then came the "hair muss" heard 'round the world. When Fallon playfully messed up Donald Trump’s hair during the 2016 campaign, a huge chunk of the audience shifted. They wanted someone who was going to take the moment seriously, or at least someone who could dismantle the news with a bit more edge.
By 2017, the script flipped. Colbert started beating Fallon in total viewers. By 2018, he took the crown for good.
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- 2015-2016: Colbert struggles in second or third place, trying to figure out the "Late Show" vibe.
- 2017-2019: The "Resistance" era. Colbert surges to #1 in total viewers, often hitting 3 million to 3.5 million a night.
- 2020: The pandemic years. Even with "A Late Show" filmed in a bathtub or a spare bedroom, he held the lead because people needed that nightly sanity check.
Honestly, it’s been a nine-season winning streak. As of early 2026, he’s still the most-watched man in late night. In the fourth quarter of 2025, he was pulling in about 2.69 million total viewers per episode. Compare that to Fallon’s 1.33 million and Jimmy Kimmel’s 2.37 million. He’s not just winning; he’s nearly doubling the Tonight Show in total eyes.
The Demographic Problem Nobody Mentions
So if he's number one, why is CBS retiring the whole franchise? This is where the Colbert ratings over time reveal a painful truth about broadcast TV. Total viewers don't pay the bills; the "demo" does. Advertisers care about the 18–49 age group, and that’s where things have gotten dicey.
While Colbert wins the "total viewers" (mostly older folks who still have cable or antennas), Jimmy Kimmel has been eating his lunch in the demo. In late 2025, Kimmel actually surged into first place for 18–49s, averaging 271,000 viewers to Colbert’s 226,000. That 13% decline for Colbert in the demo is what makes network executives sweat. If you can’t sell ads to young people, the high production costs of a nightly show in Midtown Manhattan start to look like a bad investment.
How Modern Viewing Habits Broke the Model
We can't talk about ratings without talking about YouTube. A decade ago, you stayed up to watch the monologue. Now? You watch it at 8:00 AM while drinking coffee or scrolling on the train.
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Colbert’s "digital footprint" is massive. Some of his monologues rack up 2 million views in 12 hours. But Nielsen is only recently getting good at counting that, and even then, a YouTube view pays pennies compared to a 30-second spot on a national broadcast. This is the paradox of Colbert ratings over time: his cultural influence is probably higher than it’s ever been, but the traditional metric used to justify his $15 million-plus salary is shrinking.
"The share of people actually watching linear TV at 11:35 PM has cratered. Colbert might own 12% of the audience that's awake, but that audience is a fraction of what Letterman or Carson had." — Industry consensus in 2025.
The 2025 Ratings Surge (The "Cancellation Spark")
Interestingly, when CBS announced in July 2025 that the show would end in May 2026, the ratings actually spiked. It was like people realized what they were going to miss. For a week in late July, Colbert logged an average of 3.059 million viewers. That was his best performance in over two years. His demo share jumped 64% that week alone.
It proves there’s still an appetite for his brand of satire, especially as we head into another volatile election cycle. But it’s likely too little, too late to save the "franchise" model.
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What This Means for Your Nightly Routine
If you’re a fan of the show, you’ve basically got a few months left of the Ed Sullivan Theater era. After that, the 11:35 PM slot is being handed back to local affiliates. It’s a massive shift in how networks operate.
Here is what you should keep an eye on as we approach the finale:
- Watch the Demo Shift: See if Kimmel continues to dominate the 18–49 group. If he does, expect ABC to lean even harder into his viral "Mean Tweets" style content.
- The Gutfeld Factor: Don't ignore cable. Greg Gutfeld on Fox News has been hovering around 2.8 million to 3.3 million viewers. He’s technically outperforming Colbert on many nights, though it’s "cable vs. broadcast" so the math is different.
- The Streaming Pivot: Watch where Colbert goes next. Most insiders expect him to move to a weekly show on a streamer (like John Oliver) or a heavy-duty podcast deal. The "nightly" grind is dying.
The data shows that Colbert didn't fail; the 11:35 PM time slot did. He’s leaving at the top of the heap, even if the heap is smaller than it used to be. If you want to see the master at work before the lights go out, now is the time to tune in—live or on YouTube—because once May 2026 hits, the "Late Show" as we know it is history.