The long, slow death of the late-night talk show

The shifting sands of entertainment just swallowed one of America’s most successful shows — and with it, sounded the alarm on an iconic entertainment format: the late-night talk show.

The first to pull the plug of the three major late-night shows, Paramount Global-owned CBS announced on Thursday that it plans to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” after the next TV season, citing a “financial decision.” Despite leading the competitive 11:35 p.m. ET late-night slot for almost a decade, the show has lost more than a third of its TV audience since 2018.

Money matters

Despite their clippable formats translating well to social media, long gone are the days when Americans would religiously watch shows hosted by big personalities like Johnny Carson or Jay Leno before bed.

With streaming and social media replacing traditional TV, and expensive talent at the center of each show, the bottom line is that the late-night model doesn’t make as much sense anymore.

Indeed, despite ratings holding up better than some of his peers, Colbert’s show has reportedly been losing $40 million a year, with its ad revenue plummeting some 42% since 2018 according to Reuters, as ad dollars followed the eyeballs to TikTok, YouTube, Netflix, and Instagram.

Even though there’s clearly still some demand for well-polished topical talk shows, services like Netflix are instead investing more into live sports than talking heads — which means “The Late Show” might be one of the first to abandon the genre, but it probably won’t be the last.