Last month, CBS announced that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” would be coming to an end after its 2026 season, citing “financial reasons” for its cancellation.
That decision from CBS sparked a report about just how much money the show was losing, claiming it was well into 10 figures every year.
Now, fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel is clapping back, expressing his doubt at the reporting.
‘Late Show’ Canceled for ‘Financial Reasons’
When CBS announced that “The Late Show” would end after its 2026 season, the network explained in a statement that the decision was not related to Colbert or the show’s performance, but was “purely a financial decision.”
“‘THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT’ will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” the company said in a statement last month. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire ‘THE LATE SHOW’ franchise at that time. We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late-night television.
“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
The final episode of the show is set to air in May of 2026.
Report Claims ‘Late Show’ Lost $40 Million
Shortly after CBS announced that the “Late Show” would end in 2026, Matt Belloni of Puck News reported that Colbert’s show “has been losing more than $40 million a year” for the network.
“‘Late Show,’ with its topical humor and celebrity interviews pegged to specific projects, has struggled on Paramount+. And of the three network late-night shows, ‘Late Show’ has by far the smallest digital footprint on YouTube and other platforms,” Belloni wrote. “So from a business perspective, the cancellation makes sense.”
Belloni said he spoke with sources both at CBS and Skydance Media, the company that is set to buy CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, as part of an $8 billion merger.
Jimmy Kimmel Calls Out ‘Nonsensical’ Report
Fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, spoke out against the claim that “The Late Show” was losing $40 million a year, calling the report “beyond nonsensical.”
“I just want to say that the idea that Stephen Colbert‘s show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical,” Kimmel said during a recent interview with Variety. These alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows — I don’t know who they are, but I do know they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“They seem to only be focused on advertising revenue and have completely forgotten about affiliate fees, which number in the hundreds of millions — probably in total billions — and you must allocate a certain percentage of those fees to late-night shows,” Kimmel explained.
Kimmel went on to express his doubt that the number reported is “anywhere near accurate.”
“It really is surprising how little the media seems to know about how the media works. There’s just not a snowball’s chance in hell that that’s anywhere near accurate,” he said. “Even that — that’s all you need to know. Suddenly he’s losing $40 million a year? I will tell you, the first 10 years I did the show, they claimed we weren’t making any money — and we had five times as many viewers on ABC as we do now. Who knows what’s true? All I know is they keep paying us — and that’s kind of all you need to know.”
