Jimmy Kimmel walked onto Stephen Colbert’s Late Show on Monday with a message for everyone watching: cancel your Paramount+ subscription. Now. Kimmel was joined by Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver — the whole late night crew showing up to mark the end of one of the longest-running shows on television. It was a farewell gathering unlike anything late night television has seen before, and Kimmel wasn’t there just to say goodbye. He was there to make noise.
The Late Show is done. CBS announced the cancellation last summer, calling it “purely a financial decision.” The final episode airs May 21, 2026 — just over a week away. Colbert, who has won multiple Emmys hosting the show, was described by CBS as “irreplaceable” — right before they replaced him with nothing. The show launched in 1993 with David Letterman and has been a fixture of American late night for more than three decades. That run is now ending with a sendoff from the competition, because Hollywood has that kind of irony baked in.
Kimmel’s case for the boycott was direct and surprisingly effective on live television. His logic: fan pressure works. He used his own experience as proof. “I will tell you, when I got knocked off the air for a few days, people canceled Disney+,” Kimmel told the audience. “Why aren’t people canceling Paramount+? Because you never had it in the first place?” The crowd went nuts. It was the kind of line that earns a clip — sharp, self-deprecating, and pointed all at once. Whether it translates into actual subscriber cancellations is a different question.
The cancellation of The Late Show hasn’t sat well with a lot of people in and outside the industry. CBS insiders, David Letterman himself, and Colbert have all raised eyebrows about the timing. The show was quietly axed right as Paramount was pushing to close an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media — a deal that required FCC approval under the current administration. The theory circulating inside the industry: CBS may have been willing to sacrifice a high-profile, politically outspoken program to smooth the regulatory process and avoid any additional friction with Washington. CBS has flatly denied that any political motivation was behind the decision. The merger has since closed.
Colbert himself has been less than subtle about his feelings. While he hasn’t accused CBS directly of a political hit job on his own show, he has repeatedly made clear that he doesn’t fully buy the “purely financial” explanation. His final weeks on air have carried a different energy — not defeated, but deliberate. He knows what he built, and he knows how it’s ending.
The rest of late night has rallied around him in a way that feels genuine. Kimmel, Meyers, Fallon, and Oliver all showing up for Monday’s taping wasn’t just a tribute — it was a statement. These are competitors in a zero-sum ratings game who still showed up to share a stage because what’s happening to Colbert matters beyond any individual show. Late night television has been losing ground for years, and the cancellation of The Late Show feels like a milestone in that slow decline.
The show ends in 8 days. Whether fans actually follow Kimmel’s lead and cancel Paramount+ en masse — and whether the streaming service would even notice the dent — is the real open question. Paramount+ has been struggling regardless, and a short-term subscriber protest over a CBS late night cancellation probably won’t show up as a line item in their quarterly report. But the gesture matters. Kimmel isn’t trying to bring the show back. He’s trying to make sure the people who built it feel like someone put up a fight.
Tune in to Your Daily Updates for the latest on entertainment news, media, and politics. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs its final episode on May 21, 2026, on CBS.