The death of the Late Night Us Chat Show?

Stephen Colbert surprised this week when he announced that the late show would head to the big television plan in the sky.

The long -term series that he has been organizing since 2015 will be left in the next May. And not because Colbert is replaced by a new moderator – the show ends.

In view of the way the radio winds blow, it is unlikely that this cancellation is the last. The spectators will now wonder whether Seth Meyers or one of the Jimmys – Fallon and Kimmel – could soon follow.

The television critic Emma Bullimore finds that the late night chat show format in the USA has historically thrived in a way that other countries, including Great Britain, have always “admired”.

“Late -Night shows are an integral part of American television, just as British television would look strange without soaps or afternoon quizzes,” she says. “This cancellation is certainly a surprise, both in the decision itself and in the way it was delivered.”

Some spectators were similarly surprised. “I'm no longer big in the late night television,” wrote one, “but that feels strange. The late show is an institution.” Another described the news as “really, very bad, not only for the state of late television, but also in the general sense for the state of the media”.

However, the traditional chat show format created decades ago faces several editions in the current television landscape.

On the one hand, the type of content that you produce is probably no longer compatible with the audience's appetite.

“These types of programs are generally not a genre that will stream or catch up people,” says Frances Taylor, TV preview editor at Radio Times. “They are night and are up to date and are therefore quite out of date only 24 hours later.

“It is difficult for you to have a life outside of this nightly broadcast, while dramas, documentaries and sitcoms do not suffer from this problem.”

In addition, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Bucher to get good guests, and not just because they have four shows a week.

Chat shows used to be one of the first places for publicists where they offer their stars, but the large number of competitors who have appeared in the past 15 years have changed.

In popular social media or YouTube formats such as Chicken Shop Date or Snack Wars, there is now more attraction, both for the famousness who walk around and not reveal so much of yourself, as well as for your PR teams, who feel more secure if you can keep your talent away from potentially difficult questions.

This does not mean that viral moments cannot come from the traditional television. Chat shows have done their best to match the time in the past ten years.

Sngents such as James Cordens Carpool Karaoke and Fallons Rad with musical impressions reflected a new blueprint in which features with online attractiveness were invented.

And it worked too. The audience loves clips more on “bits” than on chat. Graham Nortons best performing YouTube clip with more than 100 m views is the time when Will Smith broke out of the sofa for an all-star musical performance.

Colbert has 10 m YouTube subscribers – a healthy number, but a weaker number than 20 m and Fallons 32 m.

It is worth noting that the world of us chat shows was always a competitive world dog dog world before the invention of streaming.

But the big TV advertising that so many of them kept afloat have largely been lost with the terrestrial television ship.

Basically, the Rasis -D ' -Tre of the Talk show format has now been questioned. Taylor notes that “most people will be out of day in all important stories” if they are broadcast late in the evening “.

“Not only that, but their social feeds will be full of social creators who feed this appetite for topical, satirical content, be it with impressions of the US president or with a disrespectful attitude to Elon Musk's youngest.”

She refers to John Mulaney's latest attempt to bring a live chat show to Netflix with mixed results.

The future now looks uncertain, and Mulaney recently said that he and the team had “found out” what their next step would be, and it was about to commit a second season.

“It doesn't sound exactly as if it were out of control,” says Taylor.

Colbert told the audience that the cancellation of the late show was ultimately a financial decision – which is certainly a credible explanation.

Television is expensive with huge teams of producers, directors, cameraman and other technical employees, not to mention the big fee for the moderator.

And while Youtubers can now offer an increasingly professional company themselves, they can do this to a fraction of the costs.

But the cancellation was still confused. The late show was one of the best shows from CBS and in 2024 attracted an average audience of 2.57 million spectators.

The reviews actually improved under Colbert, especially after pushing the Trump administration – the host is one of the president's volume critics.

As a result, some asked whether the cancellation of the show has something to do with political pressure.

The closure takes place after the CBS mother company Paramount with US President Donald Trump was determined by processing a 60 -minute interview with Kamala Harris.

President Trump said that his president's answer would be more favorable when asked about Israel on two different platforms.

CBS found that his settlement contained no excuse or regret. Business commentators said that the deal was partially completed in order not to influence the planned merger of Paramount with Skydance Media that Trump had.

After the cancellation of the Late Show had been announced, the democratic Senator Adam Schiff said: “When Paramount and CBS ended the late show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves it better.”

The feeling was repeated by the democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who found that the show was canceled three days after Colbert's criticism of the Paramount settlement.

Her comments underline the political climate in which this decision was made, but CBS denied that this was a factor.

In its explanation, the network announced that it was a “purely financial decision” and “was in no way related to the performance, the content or other matters of the show at Paramount”.

It is not clear what Colbert himself will be next. It can be taken up by a streamer or try to move his current show online.

Piers Morgan's uncensored offers a potential model – a program that started on TV and still looks like a TV show, but later successfully moved to YouTube.

The Late Show brand is “strong, closed and irreplaceable, and no host is funny and thoughtful – soulful – as Stephen Colbert,” said John Avlon, media manager and former democratic congress candidate.

“That's why he is loved by a loyal audience and they will follow him what he does next.”

Other TV chat show hosts have found new formats to remain relevant. Colbert's predecessor David Letterman was able to attract the guests of A-list when he moved to Netflix in 2018 to make a new series, my next guest does not need an introduction.

If everything else fails, there is another option. He is currently one of the few existing celebrities without his own podcast.