When Does The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Season 12 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

What is The Late Show with Stephen Colbert about?

Stephen Colbert took over the Ed Sullivan Theater from David Letterman in 2015, and the transition was bumpy at first. Colbert had spent years playing a character on The Daily Show and then The Colbert Report, and early episodes of The Late Show felt like watching someone learn to exist on camera as themselves. That growing pain eventually resolved into something more settled, and by the Trump years, the show had found its footing as the most politically engaged program in the late-night slot.

The tone is somewhere between a comedy show that takes the news seriously and a news show that desperately needs jokes to survive. Colbert leans harder into satire than his competitors, and his monologues during periods of political chaos have earned the show its ratings dominance. The interviews are more variable. He is a genuinely curious host who sometimes coaxes real conversations out of guests, and other times the format swallows everything whole. Jon Batiste, during his tenure, was a genuine asset, someone whose warmth and musicianship gave the show a texture most late-night programs lack.

Critics and viewers have responded well enough, though the IMDb rating of 7.1 reflects the way the show divides along political lines as much as anything else. Audiences who share Colbert's worldview tend to find the show essential; those who don't tend to find it grating. That polarization is part of the story of late-night television in general over the past decade.

What separates this show from its competitors is not really the comedy, which is solid but rarely surprising. It is Colbert's evident belief that what he is doing matters. Whether that earnestness reads as admirable or exhausting probably depends on the night.

Is The Late Show with Stephen Colbert renewed or cancelled?

Why did The Late Show with Stephen Colbert end?

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert didn't fade quietly. It ran for eleven seasons and produced over 1,800 episodes, which by any measure is a substantial run. But CBS's decision to cancel it in July 2025 reflected something bigger than Colbert's performance or the show's quality. Late night television as a format has been in structural decline for years, with younger audiences consuming clips on YouTube and social media rather than sitting down at 11:35 to watch a full hour of monologue and interviews. The ratings math eventually stopped working.

CBS had been watching this play out across the entire late night landscape, not just on its own network. Advertisers have followed audiences away from linear television, and the economics of producing a nightly show with a full band, a large staff, and a Manhattan studio became harder to justify as the audience kept shrinking. Colbert's show held its own competitively, frequently trading the top spot with NBC's Tonight Show, but holding first place in a declining category is a limited victory. The pie was getting smaller regardless of who had the biggest slice.

Colbert himself had also become a somewhat polarizing figure after years of politically charged commentary, which probably didn't help broaden the audience beyond its core base. Whether that cost the show viewers or just defined its ceiling is hard to say with certainty. What's clear is that CBS decided the era of the traditional late night talk show was winding down, and rather than wait for a slow death, they set a firm end date. That's a cancellation, not a graceful conclusion, and it says more about where television is headed than about what Colbert built.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Season 12 Release Date

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The Late Show with Stephen Colbert seasons