Stephen Colbert bowed out of late night with a ratings bang.
The series finale of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” which aired Thursday, May 21, brought in 6.74 million viewers on CBS, according to Nielsen preliminarily numbers. It marked the show’s most-watched weeknight episode ever — this story will be updated with final viewership figures once they are available.
While “The Late Show” primarily airs on weeknights, the program aired a post-Super Bowl episode back in February 2016, which scored 20.55 million viewers —ratings that are nearly impossible to match without the juggernaut event as a lead-in.
The series finale did, however, surpass its Colbert’s hosting debut viewership, which saw “The Late Show” debut to 6.55 million total viewers on Sept. 8, 2015.
Over a decade later, “The Late Show” is averaging 2.69 million viewers in Q1 2026, per Nielsen live-plus-seven-day viewing figures.
While no guests were initially announced for the series finale, there were a handful of notable appearances, including Paul McCartney, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Andy Cohen, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Bryan Cranston, Tig Notaro, Tim Meadows and Elijah Wood, as well as Colbert’s Strike Force Five late night peers, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver.
In the leadup to the finale, Colbert welcomed Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg and Bruce Springsteen, among others. The week prior saw Colbert’s late night peers pay him a visit, and later, his predecessor, David Letterman.
Colbert’s last day on air was confirmed in January, though CBS announced in July 2025 that “The Late Show” would come to an end in May 2026. Byron Allen’s “Comics Unleashed” will take over the 11:35 p.m. timeslot the next day on Friday, May 22.
