A petition is circulating to keep The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on television.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 204,997 people signed a petition aiming for 250,00 signatures. The petition came after Colbert announced the show would end in May 2026.
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“America needs Stephen Colbert’s voice now more than ever. Save the Late Show,” the petition reads. “CBS’s decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s show looks blatantly political.”
CBS explained the end of The Late Show as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” Since Colbert took over in 2015, the show has cost $100 million to produce annually.
Nielsen ratings recorded The Late Show with Stephen Colbert had an average of 1.9 million total viewers.
“It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount,” CBS said, referring to its merger with Skydance and a recent settlement with President Donald Trump for $16 million.
Following the news of the settlement in early July, Colbert lambasted his employer for bending the knee over a lawsuit that was “completely without merit.” Trump sued the network over edits made to a 60 Minutes interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris during her presidential campaign.
“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended,” Colbert said. “And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company.”
COLBERT CRITICIZES TRUMP PREDICTION OTHER COMEDY SHOWS WILL GET AXED
Trump celebrated the end of Colbert’s show in a Truth Social post that claimed the host’s “talent was even less than his ratings.” According to the president, Greg Gutfeld, the host of Fox News’s Gutfeld!, is “better than all” late-night talk show hosts.
The cancellation of The Late Show came the same week the Senate codified Department of Government Efficiency cuts that stripped $1.1 billion in federal funding for public broadcasting.