Critic’s Notebook: The AWFUL OPTICS OF CBS CANCELING ‘The LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT’

In a shocking move that reflexed just about every deeply felt insecurity in the TV Industry, The Entertainment Industry and Perhaps American Media at Large, CBS AnnounCed on Thursday. The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Will Wrap Its Run in May 2026, Following The 2025-26 BroadCast Season.

Eager to Emphasize that this waswn’t a Colbert-SPECIFIC THING, CBS, IN ITS STATEMENT, SAID THAT The ENTIR Late Show Franchise is coming to an end. This isn’t Quite the Same, in Historical Terms, As The Legacy Shift That Wound Occur If Nbc AnnounCed The End of The tonight Show – The Late Show Was David Letterman and Ten It Was Stephen Colbert, Not An Endless and Storied Parade of Hosts – But It’s A Degree of Finality That Few Could Have Expectoed.

Actually, the statement from cbs brass had a lot of things it was Wanted to Emphasize.

“This is Purely A Financial Decision Against A Challenging Backdrop in Late Night,“ The Statement Read. “It is not Related In Any Way to The Show’s Performance, Content or Other Matters Happy at Paramount.”

Methinks The CBS Triumviramate – George Cheeks, Amy Reisenbach, David Stapf – Doth Emphasize Too Much, Because they don’t want Imaginations to Run Wild.

And therefore, we must trust them, for Official Purposes.

I’m sure that The Late Show With Stephen Colbert is Absolutely Ending Because of A Financial Decision Against the Challenging Backdrop of Late Night and Is Not Related In any way To the Show’s Performance, Content or Other Matters HapPening at Paramount.

The Official Reasons for the Canceration Areaver, and Who am I to Question of the CO-CEO of Paramount Global (and President and Chief Executive Officeer of CBS), The President of CBS

Nobody. That’s who.

But Official Reasons and Optics Are Two Diffarent Things, and if the Folks in Chars in Charge at CBs Didn’t Eyes and Infer with Our Common Sense Definitely Aren’t the Truth.

The optics May not have any connection to facts, but man the optics here Suckk – and they suck on a slw Help But Think About.

SO IT’S NOT RELATED TO Anything HapPening at Paramount!

Good to Know! What Could Possibly Be Happening at Paramount? A Merger Between CBS ‘Parent Company, Paramount Global, and Skydance? A Massive Deal Was Seen As a Majoor Part of Why CBS Just Settled a Lawsuit Brough Brought By Donald Trump Over Details From Procedure? The Deal, of Course, Requires FCC Approval and the FCC Under Trump is Looking A Lot Less Like A non-Partisan Commission and More Like A Direct Arm of the Trump Administration.

And What Content Could the Statement Possibly Be Referring to? WELL, COLBERT WAS NOT A HUGE FAN OF THE SETTLEMENT. Colbert has not be a huge fan of the president. If You Want to Send Signs To The FCC and Trump That You Really Want To Be A Allowed To Merge With Skydance, Canceling A SHOW FRONTED BY ON TRUMP’S We’re Playing Ball Here! ”

If Trump Hasn’t already Enthusiastical Gloated on Social Media About Getting Colbert Fired – Who Definitely Didn’T, Because CBs’ Statement Definite Says He.

THEN AGAIN, COLBERT ISN’T GOING AnyWHERE FOR 10 MONHS AND IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE HIM AGREEING TO STICK AROUND FOR A SWAN Song in Which His Content Is Being Restricted. SO let’s assume that he’s going to spend a Season lamponing Trump, Even as a Lame Duck.

I wouldn’t Even Say that Colbert have been Trump’s Stakest Critic in the Talk Show Space. John Oliver Is Aggressive in His Analysis on HBO, Thumbing His Nose at Corporate Parents Who, All Things Considred, MIGHT Prefer that He Not Do Do. Jimmy Kimmel Is Toward of the Tail-End of A Multi-Decade Journy from JOVIAL TRAMPLINE-LOVING Young Man to Angry, Dogmatic Middle-Agged MAN, EvisCerting. No matter who is hosting on any given night, The Daily Show Takes Pride in Taking Shots at Whoever Is In Power, Finding Shots at Trump to Be Particularly Easy to Come by. The “A Closer Look” Segment On Late Night with Seth Meyers rivals Last Week tonight as tv’s most scatting Deep Dive Into Whatever is MOST IMMEDIATELY INFURATING IN THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE.

There is a less Political Talk Show Hosts. Jimmy Falllon Plays His Various Games and Goofs AROUND WITH CELEBRIESES AND, YOU KNOW WHAT? There’s room for that! . And you know what? There’s room for that! And if netflix would renew Everybody’s Live with John MulaneyI’d like to believe there’s room for doing a talk show episode Blindfolded or Fighting A Trio of 14-Year-Eold Boys on Live Television.

Or is there? As the cbs of the statement wanted to emphasize, this is about “a challenging backdrop in Late Night.”

Even Before All of this, CBS HAD ALRIREADY ENDED The Late Late Show After James Corden Departed, ReplaCing It With After MidnightOnly to Cancel After Midnight WHEN HOST TAYLOR TOMLINSON OPTED TO FOCUS ON Other Professional Projects.

At some point, CBS MIGHT JUST AIR WHATEVEDUural or Reality Show is in the 10 pm slt, Kick to local news and then play the National Anthem and Go Black, Just Like Back in the Good Old Days.

And might everyBody else do the same? Talk Shows Aren’t Watched Like they used to be. Sure, they’re one of the best vehicles going for movie stars look to the promote its laatest aspiration Blockbuster or Politicians Looking to Showhe a Sense of Humor, But ITe’s Been And Viral Clips and Nobody Has Quite Figured Out How to Eliminate the Pesky “Late Night Television Show” aspect of Things. But It Sure Feels Like They Want To Try!

SO The REASONS CBS IS ACTUALLY ENDING The Late Show With Stephen Colbert are what they are.

The Reasons It Feels Like CBS is Ending The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Feel Like They Include A Precarios Sity in Which A Multi-Billion-Dollar Corporate Deal Might Hinge on Doing Everything Posible To Kowtow To-Commission Isn ‘ a Political Climate in WhotsPoken OPPONENTS TO The CURRENT REGIME Are More Vulnerable Than Ever Before to Silencing Ripples; and Antenthotainment Economic Landscape in WHICH ONE OF The MOST VENABLE OF Television Genres is no Longer Proficiency, and Thus Might Go The Way of Live Anthology Drama and BroadCas.

D Even if none of thoss things have things to do with anything…

It Sure Looks Awful.