Staff Reports
Stephen Colbert’s once-mighty Late Show is coming to a predictable, self-inflicted end, and the network has set the final episode for May 21, 2026. What was billed as a graceful goodbye has instead become a messy farewell that only confirms what many Americans already suspected about late-night television’s collapse.
In one of the more astonishing displays of sanctimonious bravado, Colbert and David Letterman were filmed tossing pieces of CBS property off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater in an act that felt more like a tantrum than a tribute. For viewers tired of media elites lecturing the country, the stunt read as performative destruction — a last gasp of celebrity entitlement rather than genuine contrition or reflection.
CBS says the move to retire the Late Show franchise was a financial decision, and that explanation is hard to argue with when you watch a once-popular program turn its focus inward and away from growing audiences. Executives are cutting losses and returning the timeslot to affiliates after years of declining returns on investment in the late-night format. The network’s decision is business, plain and simple.
Colbert, for his part, has used his final weeks on the air to air grievances and stage emotional send-offs — behavior that looks less like leadership and more like an extended protest performance. His high-decibel attacks on CBS and public displays of pique have done little to rehabilitate his image with ordinary Americans who watch him less and resent being talked down to by elites.
Unsurprisingly, Colbert’s late-night peers have weighed in, with Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon making pointed gestures of solidarity by airing reruns or going dark on the night of Colbert’s finale. That kind of inside-baseball mutual back-patting only reinforces the perception that late-night television operates as an insular club, disconnected from the concerns of the country they claim to represent.
Conservatives have every right to call out this spectacle for what it is: a sob story dressed up as martyrdom. Colbert chose to make his closing chapters about grievance and theatrical contempt rather than humility or meaningful dialogue, and Americans should be skeptical of a media elite that applauds itself while blaming everyone else for its failures.
The real takeaway is not just that one show is ending, but that an entire industry has lost touch with the values of the people it once served. Hardworking Americans deserve media that informs and entertains without the sneering moralism; if that means new voices and independent outlets rise to fill the gap, so much the better for our civic life and common sense.
