{"id":2147,"date":"2026-05-22T20:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/22\/stephen-colberts-final-late-show-draws-most-weeknight-viewers-of-his-tenure\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:16:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:16:00","slug":"stephen-colberts-final-late-show-draws-most-weeknight-viewers-of-his-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/22\/stephen-colberts-final-late-show-draws-most-weeknight-viewers-of-his-tenure\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert\u2019s Final \u2018Late Show\u2019 Draws Most Weeknight Viewers of His Tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\t \t \t\t<\/svg>\t\tLogo text<\/span> \t<\/a> <\/p>\n

\tThe final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a><\/em> drew 6.74 million viewers for CBS on Thursday, the most-ever for a weeknight episode, according to preliminary Nielsen data.<\/p>\n

\tThat\u2019s more than double the season average, with the Late Show <\/em>generally drawing between 2.4 million and 2.7 million viewers an episode this past season, which was its last on CBS. It is however only about half the viewers that David Letterman saw for his farewell episode in 2015, when 13.7 million viewers tuned in.<\/p>\n

\tStill, the nearly seven million viewer figure is the best ever for a weeknight edition of the program during Colbert\u2019s run. The Late Show <\/em>once aired a post-Super Bowl episode (Feb. 7, 2016) on a Sunday night, which averaged 20.55 million viewers, while the series premiere of the Colbert Late Show<\/em> averaged 6.55 million total viewers. For the now-wrapped season, The Late Show<\/em> averaged 2.69 million viewers.<\/p>\n

\tAs with Letterman\u2019s final show, Colbert\u2019s final show was star-studded<\/a>, with appearances by the likes of Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd and Tim Meadows, and a closing performance led by Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n

\tCBS announced last summer in a shock move<\/a> that it would cancel the Late Show<\/em> after the current season, citing the challenges economics of the timeslot. Byron Allen will take over 11:30 with his Comics Unleashed<\/em> series in a time-buy arrangement with CBS.<\/p>\n

\tThe finale numbers, while strong compared to a typical episode, do underscore how viewing habits have changed. Colbert\u2019s final monologue has gathered 2.9 million views and counting on YouTube, while the musical performance with McCartney is at 1.1 million views and growing. Millions more have watched clips on platforms like TikTok and Reels. Those numbers aren\u2019t apples to apples, of course, but they are a big part of why and how late night\u2019s modus operandi has changed.<\/p>\n

\tAnd as of Friday, there is one less network, and one less show, in the game.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Logo text The final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert drew 6.74 million viewers for CBS on Thursday, the most-ever for a weeknight episode, according to preliminary Nielsen data. That\u2019s more than double the season average, with the Late Show generally drawing between 2.4 million and 2.7 million viewers an episode this past season, which was its last on CBS. It is however only about half the viewers that David Letterman saw for his farewell episode in 2015, when 13.7 million viewers tuned in. Still, the nearly seven million viewer figure is the best ever for a weeknight edition of the program during Colbert\u2019s run. The Late Show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,252,683,85,86,1337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-stephen-colbert","category-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","category-tv","category-tv-news","category-tv-ratings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}