Stephen Colbert has officially set the date for his final curtain call, and it’s the end of a 33-year television institution. During a taping of Late Night with Seth Meyers airing tonight, January 27, the late-night icon revealed that the series finale of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will air on Thursday, May 21.
This announcement puts a definitive end to months of speculation following CBS’s bombshell decision last summer to not only cancel Colbert’s show but to retire the entire Late Show franchise. The network cited “purely financial” reasons for the move, claiming the show loses roughly $40 million annually despite its consistent #1 spot in the ratings. However, many industry insiders point to the political friction between Colbert and the network’s parent company, Paramount, especially amid high-stakes merger negotiations.
The end of The Late Show is the death of a legacy that reshaped television. The franchise was born in 1993 out of the most famous snub in TV history. After being passed over for The Tonight Show in favor of Jay Leno, David Letterman bolted from NBC to CBS. The network spent a staggering $140 million to lure him, which included buying and gutting the historic Ed Sullivan Theater—the same stage where The Beatles and Elvis Presley once stood.
When Stephen Colbert took over in September 2015, he inherited this cultural monument. He transformed the show into a politically charged powerhouse, leaning into the sharp satire he mastered on The Colbert Report. For nine consecutive seasons, he kept The Late Show at #1, proving that intelligent discourse could still dominate the airwaves.
As for the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, its future is currently up in the air. With CBS retiring the brand to save costs, the theater faces the possibility of being sold—potentially for as much as $90 million—or sitting empty as a venue for occasional network events. While fans hope Colbert might land a new project at a streaming giant like Netflix or Apple, the veteran host is currently focused on finishing his historic 11-season run. Colbert himself underscored the finality, telling his audience, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”