CBS had announced that the show was being canceled for purely financial reasons. However, there are doubts about this representation: Colbert’s show has been the one with the highest ratings in the competitive American late-night segment for years.
However, the moderator is not only considered extremely successful, but also particularly political compared to colleagues like Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers or Jimmy Kimmel. Colbert first gained notoriety in the political satire “The Daily Show”, which served as a template for the German “Heute Show” on ZDF. Colbert later got his own show called “The Colbert Report”: There the 61-year-old parodied the role of conservative news presenters, such as those known in the USA from Fox News.
When Colbert got his own late night show in 2015, the show wasn’t initially number one. The rise of his show came two years later. Parallel to Donald Trump’s first term in office, Colbert was able to continue to increase his ratings, probably because he took aim at the US government at the time in almost every one of his episodes.
However, anyone who wants to understand Colbert’s abrupt end must take note of other developments surrounding the CBS broadcaster in recent years: During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump sued the broadcaster for $10 billion. The reason was an interview with Kamala Harris, who ran for the Democrats in the presidential election against Trump.
Trump had criticized the fact that parts of the interview were cut and the conversation was not shown in its entirety. Such cuts are common in television interviews, as long as they do not distort the content of the interviewee’s statements. Although the broadcaster was expected to have a chance of winning the case, there was no negotiation. In July 2025, a few months after Trump returned to the White House, the two sides agreed to a $16 million settlement.
It is still unclear why CBS refused to negotiate. However, many critics suspected that economic reasons were behind the decision. Late night talker Colbert also discussed the comparison and called it “a big, fat bribe” on his show. A few days later, the presenter announced that his show would be discontinued.
