CBS has suffered a ratings hit after replacing The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen.
During its final season on air, The Late Show was the most-watched late night talk show in America and attracted an audience of 2.7 million viewers.
That jumped to 6.74 million viewers for Colbert’s final night on CBS last Thursday, May 21.
As Late Nighter reports, on the following evening in the same timeslot Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen drew just 995,000 viewers.
Not only was this audience significantly down on Colbert’s performance, it was also well behind the late night shows that are still on the air. NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon attracted 1.5 million viewers on Friday, while 1.6 million people watched Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC despite the episode being a rerun.
The show’s host Byron Allen has said he’s “not trying to replace” Colbert.
Allen, is a comedian and billionaire media executive who founded Allen Media Group. He told NPR that his Comics Unleashed show would avoid the political satire that became central to Colbert’s show, particularly during Donald Trump’s presidencies.
“At the end of the day, I’m not trying to replace Colbert,” Allen, 65, told the public broadcaster. “I am not trying to hold on to his audience because Comics Unleashed has been around 20 years and has its own audience. And we’re speaking to people who have been ignored. And good luck finding another show that’s had on more comedians of every shape and size and color.”
Comics Unleashed, launched in 2006, features Allen alongside a rotating panel of stand-up comedians discussing topical stories and performing short comedy routines.
The show previously occupied CBS’s post-midnight slot after James Corden’s departure from The Late Late Show. It returned to the network again in 2025 under a time-buy agreement in which Allen Media Group purchased airtime from CBS and handled its own advertising sales.
CBS announced in April 2026 that the program would move into the 11:35 p.m. slot following the end of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The network announced last July that it was cancelling the long-running Late Show franchise, days after Colbert criticized Paramount for paying U.S. president Donald Trump $16m to settle a dispute over a 60 Minutes interview with then vice-president Kamala Harris.
Colbert was one of the American president’s most visible television critics, regularly using his opening monologues to mock him and right-wing media figures.
