‘The END of late-night TV’: Colbert signs off as ‘The Late Show’ comes to historic end

[0:00] If you're just tuning in to The Late Show, you missed a lot. [0:05] Tonight is our final broadcast from the Ed Sullivan Theater, [0:08] where, oh no, we were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years. [0:16] All right, that was, can't take this for granted. [0:19] I'll miss doing first drafts where I show the final draft of a greeting card [0:23] and then show the playfully wrong first draft. [0:26] So we made one for tonight. [0:29] This one's pretty nice. [0:31] This isn't goodbye, it's see you later. [0:36] Yes. [0:37] But the first draft said, this isn't goodbye. [0:42] How do you start an OnlyFans? [0:46] So you may have heard there was some speculation that the Pope might be Colbert's final guest, [0:51] Stephen, a devout Catholic, of course. [0:54] Well, they got as close as they could to the Pope last night at the Ed Sullivan Theater. [0:58] And now for my final interview, [1:03] my guest tonight is not just perfect, he is, in fact, infallible. [1:08] Please welcome all the way from Vatican City. [1:10] Stephen, Stephen. [1:12] What? [1:14] Waltine, what are you doing? [1:14] I'm trying to introduce the Pope. [1:16] Yeah, that's the thing. [1:17] The Pope won't come out of his dressing room. [1:21] What? [1:21] Why not? [1:22] Well, we didn't read his whole writer, and evidently we got him the wrong snacks. [1:29] He's pretty mad. [1:32] But he asked for hot dogs. [1:35] We got him hot dogs. [1:37] Let me talk to him. [1:38] Put him up. [1:39] Put him up. [1:39] Your holiness, please come out. [1:41] Leo. [1:42] Leo, please. [1:44] We got a show. [1:44] No way, Colbert. [1:46] You call that a Chicago dog? [1:48] Don't play like that. [1:50] Leo, out. [1:51] Oh, no. [1:55] Oh, no. [1:57] Oh. [1:59] Oh, who was definitely my guest tonight has canceled. [2:10] And did we already send the other stars away? [2:12] Yeah, I think so. [2:12] Oh, we already sent the other stars away. [2:14] This is terrible. [2:15] Well, who's going to be my last guest now? [2:18] Hey, Steve, what about me? [2:20] You're going to be my perfect last guest. [2:24] What are you doing here, Paul? [2:26] Well, I was just in the area. [2:28] I was doing some errands. [2:31] Oh, yeah? [2:31] Yeah, actually, I brought something for you. [2:33] You brought something for me? [2:34] It's coming for you. [2:36] What? [2:36] Is this? [2:37] Yeah. [2:37] There's a... [2:38] They told me there'd be... [2:39] I thought the Pope was bringing this. [2:41] I'm sorry about that. [2:42] What is... [2:43] I honestly have never seen this. [2:47] Come on. [2:48] Is that here? [2:57] That's here. [2:58] That's here? [2:59] Right here. [3:03] Well, to Stephen, you're better than the Beatles. [3:08] Paul McCartney. [3:10] No, it doesn't... [3:10] It does. [3:11] That's what I read. [3:12] It doesn't say that. [3:13] When my editors are done, that's what it's going to say, Paul. [3:16] Paul McCartney giving Colbert a signed photo from the Beatles' iconic performance back in 1964. [3:24] The poetry of that. [3:25] The Beatles coming to America in February of 64, playing the Ed Sullivan Theater, and then closing it down for Colbert last night. [3:32] McCartney ended the show with a classic Beatles song with Stephen. [3:36] You know, John Meacham, I know you know Stephen Colbert very well over the years, and there had been speculation, of course, that the Pope might be there, Colbert having fun with that. [4:13] But the real hope, I think, from a lot of people was that maybe, just maybe, Paul McCartney would show up and bookend the Beatles' 1964 Ed Sullivan Theater performances by closing things out for Stephen last night, and there he was. [4:27] Just extraordinary. [4:27] You know, Stephen is an architect of the culture, and on reflection, of course, the theater itself is that. [4:38] The 64 arrival, and Ed Sullivan changed global culture in 1964. [4:49] In some ways, it's a hinge in the cultural life of the country and of the West. [4:56] And what Colbert has done, beginning with his character, Stephen Colbert, and his attack on truthiness and really kind of the prescient ability he had to see where so much of our public life was going back in his Comedy Central days. [5:17] And then he brought that to this enormous audience, what passes certainly for an enormous audience in this atomized world. [5:27] That's another thing to think about, is think of how many people had to tune in to Ed Sullivan in 1964 because there weren't that many other options. [5:38] And here Colbert was as the capstone, and one of the few things that could bring a lot of people together in this media climate. [5:49] And I think we're going to miss him, miss his insight. [5:53] And for those who say, oh, he was too political, too partisan, you know, always worry when they come for the comedians. [6:03] Yeah. [6:03] Yeah, that's for sure. [6:05] Eugene Robinson, your thoughts. [6:07] I mean, there is—this is amidst a backdrop that is a little bit depressing for members of the media and people who believe in free speech. [6:16] Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, nothing lasts forever, but Stephen Colbert was such an amazing and such—he is such a talented man. [6:27] I was on his Comedy Central show once, and we had a lovely conversation in the green room before, and at the end he said, now, when we go out there, I'm not me. [6:40] I'm that character. [6:41] And we got on the show, and he was just perfect, as the, you know, with all his truthiness. [6:50] Now, what a bookend, though, to have McCartney. [6:54] Anyone my age or older remembers that night in 1964 on that very stage when, indeed, the Beatles and, you know, Paul McCartney right there did change the culture. [7:08] And it's a very different world now. [7:13] There's something comforting about that to me, actually. [7:17] It's a touchstone in our cultural life. [7:19] Yeah, pretty ideal closer last night. [7:22] And, you know, Colbert didn't mention Trump by name, but, of course, the Trump and the pressure on CBS and Paramount, you know, was noted throughout the week, Springsteen explicitly, so a few days prior. [7:32] But, you know, Colbert, it's not, he's extraordinarily talented, extraordinarily smart, a very decent man with a big heart. [7:39] And that heart really filled last night, but the entire run of the late show. [7:43] And I also think it is a safe bet, though, this chapter closed. [7:46] This is not the last we have seen of Stephen Colbert. [7:48] Yes, it'll be interesting. [7:48] He will do many brilliant things going forward. [7:50] It'll be interesting to see what he does with this. [7:53] Our next guest says Stephen Colbert's final show marks, quote, the beginning of the end for late night TV. [7:59] Let's bring in founding partner of Puck, Matthew Bellany. [8:04] He's the author of Puck's flagship newsletter, What I'm Hearing, and the host of the podcast, The Town. [8:10] He's also the former editor of The Hollywood Reporter. [8:13] So let's exercise our free speech and talk about what really is going on here, why he's leaving, what this is the backdrop of, what's coming in its place, and what this does mean for late night television. [8:27] Matthew. [8:28] Well, that's a lot there. [8:29] And the fact of the matter is, is that the late show was losing money. [8:34] I mean, according to my reporting, it was tens of millions of dollars that the show was losing each year. [8:39] And yet there is this kind of stink of politics that has been around this cancellation. [8:47] The move was made by the former owner of CBS. [8:51] However, it was right as the sale to the Ellison family was going on, and obviously the Trump administration was very involved in that. [9:02] They had been saying that they don't like the content on CBS, particularly Trump has gone after late night and Colbert in general. [9:09] So the speculation is that while maybe there was some financial motivations were real, the politics of the situation had to at least play into the minds of the decision makers. [9:25] And yet they gave him a year, they gave him an entire season of the show to go out on this run and to have people like Springsteen on the show to essentially bash the ownership on their own network. [9:39] And I think that says something about the owners, that they, yes, maybe they were doing this to appease Trump, but at least they kind of let him go out saying what he wanted to say. [9:52] And we remind people of the timeline. [9:55] They announced in July that Stephen's show had been canceled. [9:58] And one week later to the day, that deal was approved for Paramount Skydance. [10:02] So, Matthew, your piece, you say this is the beginning of the end of late night TV. [10:06] Obviously, Jimmy Kimmel has come under withering fire almost weekly, it seems, from President Trump. [10:12] He's been suspended and come back to his job. [10:14] There were calls a couple of weeks ago after the correspondence dinner for him to be fired. [10:18] He has not been. [10:19] So where do you see late night comedy going from here? [10:22] It's been an institution going back to, you know, Jack Parr in this country. [10:26] Yeah, I think that these current hosts, both Kimmel and Fallon and Myers at NBC, I think they will be the last to host these shows. [10:39] The economics of late night TV are just not there. [10:43] The audience is not tuning in. [10:44] They are on streaming platforms. [10:46] They are on their phones. [10:48] The habit of watching these late night shows after the local news is not there. [10:54] And at least at CBS, they had not figured out the model to make money on the clips and the YouTube shows. [11:02] They were making some. [11:03] And Kimmel and Fallon make a lot more money on the digital application of those shows than CBS did. [11:10] So I think that saves them for a little bit longer, especially now with Kimmel, that Trump has gone after him explicitly. [11:18] Disney, which owns ABC, has now decided to fight the FCC on this. [11:25] And this is a big deal because they could have just bowed to Trump and said, okay, we'll take Kimmel off the air. [11:32] And they're not doing that. [11:34] They suspended him in the fall for a couple nights around that Charlie Kirk joke that he made. [11:39] But ultimately, the backlash was so swift, they brought him back and they figured out a way to deal with the station groups that air the show. [11:47] But I do think that given the economics of late night, these hosts will be the last late night hosts.