CBS Leases Late Night to Byron Allen After Stephen Colbert Leaves

“As”The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” ends its run subsequent month, CBS has opted to flip its 11:35 pm ET post-local information timeslot right into a time purchase, promoting the slot to Byron Allen — who will transfer back-to-back episodes of his “Comics Unleashed” collection down an hour.

The time buy deal is thru the 2026-2027 TV season; As a part of the deal, Allen may even proceed to lease the 12:37 am hour with one other strip from his firm, the comedy sport present “Funny You Should Ask.”

“The Late Show” airs its finale on May 21 — wrapping a franchise that first began in 1993 when David Letterman moved to the Eye community from his NBC perch (having been handed over for “The Tonight Show”). Colbert has been internet hosting “The Late Show” since Letterman retired in 2015. Allen will take over the time slot the next night time, on May 22.

Meanwhile, Allen has paid CBS to run two episodes of “Comics Unleashed” — normally a brand new episode paired with a library half-hour — at 12:37 am ET lately. First, he took the slot throughout a 2023-to-2024 hole after “The Late Late Show With James Corden” ended and earlier than “After Midnight” launched in January 2024. He as soon as once more took the slot in September 2025 as “After Midnight” ended its run.

“I created and launched ‘Comics Unleashed’ 20 years ago so my fellow comedians could have a platform to do what we all love – make people laugh,” mentioned Allen, the founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group, mentioned in a press release. “I truly appreciate CBS’ confidence in me for picking up our two-hour comedy block of ‘Comics Unleashed’ and ‘Funny You Should Ask,’ because the world can never have enough laughter.”

CBS and Allen have not revealed how a lot Allen and his Allen Media Group pays for the 12:37 am slot, and it is unclear how way more he may pay the community to take over 11:35 pm as nicely. In conventional time buys, an organization will lease a time interval from a community, after which promote the promoting itself. So in impact, CBS can be creating wealth for the hour — though its scores will possible go down because it loses what has been the No. 1 speak present late night time in “The Late Show.”

According to insiders, though it is a time buy from Allen, each “Comics Unleashed” and “Funny You Should Ask” are thought-about nationwide community programming — and the Eye expects its associates to proceed to clear CBS late night time and air each exhibits.

“Comics Unleashed” initially shot round 233 episodes between 2006 and 2016 as a syndicated collection earlier than resuming manufacturing on new episodes for the 2025-2026 TV season on CBS. The present is govt produced by Allen, Carolyn Folks, Jennifer Lucas, Jodi Miller, Peter Steen and Dylan King.

As for “Funny You Should Ask,” the collection premiered in syndication as a first-run strip in September 2017. Jon Kelley hosts the gamer, which is exec produced by Allen, Carolyn Folks, Jennifer Lucas, Bob Boden, Jodi Miller, Peter Steen, Scott Satin and Eric Charbonnel.

Allen has been lobbying to take over the 11:35 pm slot from virtually the second that it was revealed that “The Late Show” was ending. “If they’re looking for a show, my hand is already up,” Allen said during New York’s Advertising Week event final October. “50 years, I’ve been waiting for this moment. Definitely, I’m going for it… I’m investing millions and millions of dollars to provide myself at 12:35.”

With CBS going from paying for an costly late night time present to being paid for the time slot, community insiders be aware that this now makes the Eye worthwhile in late night time — and that this can be a first step towards reimagining how to do authentic, economical fare within the time interval.

Since CBS determined to get out of the late night time speak enterprise, different choices included returning to drama reruns (“Crimetime After Primetime”), which is what CBS ran earlier than “Late Show With David Letterman” premiered in 1993. Another possibility was to develop native information to an hour at 11 pm, giving associates an additional half hour.

C.B.S. announced last July that “The Late Show” can be canceled on the finish of May 2026, and contended that it was “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.”

But that excuse was roundly derided, provided that CBS proprietor Paramount Global was within the technique of being acquired by Skydance, and wanted authorities approval from an administration that has continuously demanded quid professional quos. And silencing a critic of Donald Trump was seen as a manner to curry favor from the administration. Just days earlier, Colbert had criticized Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement with Trump, calling it a “big fat bribe.”

And certainly, virtually instantly, Trump wrote on social media that “I completely love’ that Colbert was fired.

In a column for Variety, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote that it had an look of “bribery in plain sight”: “Was it a coincidence that CBS canceled Colbert just three days after he spoke out? Are we sure that this wasn’t part of a wink-wink deal between the president and a giant corporation that needed something from his administration? If CBS made this decision for “purely financial” causes, why the timing? And why did Trump say “I hope I played a major part in” getting Colbert fired? These are honest questions, and ones that I “have asked Paramount and Skydance.”

The Writers Guild of America additionally called for Paramount to be investigated for bribery by the New York state legal professional normal following the information. In one vivid consequence, Colbert won the variety talk Emmy in 2025 following the information (late night time competitor Jimmy Kimmel even erected a billboard throwing his assist towards Colbert).

In an interview with GQColbert tip-toed across the standard knowledge that CBS had fired him to please Trump, however he did say, “I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation — I’m not going to say who made that decision, because I don’t know; no one’s ever going to tell us — decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount’s own lawyers, said is completely without merit.”

Regardless of the explanation, Letterman blasted CBS for a way he dealt with Colbert’s firing: “This is pure cowardice,” he said on his YouTube channel. “They didn’t do the right thing. They didn’t handle Stephen Colbert — the face of that network — in the way he deserves to have been handled.” I’ve additionally posted a flurry of clips from his time on “Late Show” mocking CBS, with the caption to the supercut studying, “You can’t spell CBS without BS.”

CBS was as soon as once more criticized in February when “The Late Show” was blocked by the community from broadcasting an interview with Texas State Rep. James Talarico — fearing retribution from the FCC. So, as an alternative the dialog was posted on YouTube and different social media platforms, the place ultimately depend, the clip had been seen greater than 9.3 million occasions.