Jon Stewart slams CBS for decision to cancel ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’

Jon Stewart performs at Comic Relief: Stand-Up for LA at The Town Hall on March 3 in New York. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Comic Relief via CNN Newsource)

Jon Stewart pulled no punches Monday over CBS’s cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s late-night show.

During Monday night’s broadcast of “The Daily Show,” Stewart’s first since Colbert on Thursday shared that “The Late Show” would not return beyond May 2026, the late-night veteran lambasted CBS for canceling the program.

“The fact that CBS didn’t try to save their No. 1 rated late-night franchise that’s been on the air for over three decades is part of what’s making everybody wonder … was this purely financial or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger,” Stewart said on his Comedy Central program.

Paramount Global — the parent of both CBS and Comedy Central — has been angling for regulatory approval for a merger with Skydance Media. Some critics last week connected the cancellation of Colbert’s show, in which he’s frequently taken aim at U.S. President Donald Trump, with the merger. CBS, for its part, cited financial reasons for discontinuing the show, stating that it was losing money in a challenging environment for late-night programming.

Stewart had harsh words for CBS and Paramount, using several expletives to punctuate his sentiments.

“If you believe as corporations or as networks (that) you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve gruel so flavorless that you will never again” risk Trump’s ire, “you are f**king wrong.”

Stewart is the latest late-night host to denounce the network’s cancellation of the 33-year-old show, just months ahead of his contract’s December 2025 expiration. Just last week, Stewart said his team hasn’t “heard anything” from executives about whether his show will be renewed. Soon after Colbert broke the news of his show’s conclusion, fellow late-night host Jimmy Kimmel slammed the move on Instagram.

“Love you Stephen,” Kimmel wrote on his Instagram story. “F**k you (…) CBS.”

Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers also offered Colbert support. Taking to their respective Instagram Stories, Fallon wrote, “I’m just as shocked as everyone,” while Meyers wrote, “I’m going to miss having him on TV every night.” John Oliver, often viewed as the firebrand of late-night, told reporters on Saturday that the program’s cancellation was “terrible, terrible news for the world of comedy.”

Colbert, who has helmed “The Late Show” since 2015, first announced his cancellation of during the show’s taping last Thursday. CBS has chalked the show’s demise to financial pressures. Late-night talk shows across the board are facing the harsh reality that declines in ad revenue can’t make up for burgeoning production costs.

But Stewart on Monday waved off the idea that late-night comedy is a financial black hole.

“Look, I understand the corporate fear, I understand the fear that you and your advertisers have with $8 billion at stake,” he said on Monday. “But understand this: The shows that you now seek to cancel, censor and control, a not-insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those … shows. That’s what made that money.”

Critics have also noted that the program’s cancellation comes after Paramount Global’s settlement with U.S. President Trump. The CBS parent in early July agreed to pay the president US$16 million to settle a lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris — despite many legal experts considering it to be a legally dubious case.

The settlement raised concerns that the company was trying to gain the favor of the Federal Communications Commission, whose approval Paramount needs to merge with Skydance Media. Trump has also boasted of an additional $16-plus-million “side deal” with Skydance’s David Ellison, which will see CBS broadcast PSAs for causes important to Trump following the Paramount-Skydance merger.

Colbert has been critical of the settlement.

It’s unsurprising that Stewart would offer such a fiery rebuke of CBS’s move. The late-night comedian called Paramount’s settlement “shameful” in early July.

Colbert and Stewart have also been colleagues for three decades; Colbert started his late-night career as a correspondent for the Stewart-helmed “Daily Show” in 1995 only to leave in 2005 to start “The Colbert Report” at CBS. Colbert helmed the titular show until 2014, after which he headed to “The Late Show.”