Stephen Colbert wrapped up his tenure as host of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d with his most-watched show in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The series finale of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d drew 6.7 million viewers on Thursday night, the biggest audience for his show since a post-Super Bowl episode in February 2016, according to preliminary data from Nielsen. The finale was Mr. Colbert\u2019s most-watched weeknight episode on record.<\/p>\n
The audience total will only grow in the coming days when additional data is factored in, including streaming stats from Paramount+.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s episode tripled his usual audience this season, when Mr. Colbert averaged 2.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen. (When delayed viewing is factored in, Mr. Colbert\u2019s audience is roughly 2.7 million viewers.)<\/p>\n
The audience on Thursday even eclipsed the 6.2 million viewers<\/a> who tuned in for Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s return from a suspension in September, one of the most anticipated<\/a> late-night episodes in recent years.<\/p>\n But in a sign of how much television and late-night have changed over the years, Thursday\u2019s viewership was nowhere close to the audiences that Jay Leno and David Letterman amassed for their final episodes several years ago. Mr. Leno\u2019s \u201cTonight Show\u201d finale drew 14.6 million viewers in February 2014, and Mr. Letterman notched 13.7 million<\/a> in May 2015 for his swan song for \u201cThe Late Show.\u201d<\/p>\n CBS canceled Mr. Colbert\u2019s show last year, arguing that it was no longer profitable. Many have speculated the show was canceled for political reasons. Mr. Colbert has been a passionate critic of President Trump for years, and CBS\u2019s parent company, Paramount, required approval from the administration to complete a merger last year with Skydance.<\/p>\n Mr. Colbert\u2019s final episode ran 18 minutes past its usual stop time \u2014 it ended at 12:53 a.m. \u2014 and featured a wide array of stars, including Paul McCartney, Ryan Reynolds, Elvis Costello, Paul Rudd and Bryan Cranston, among many others. James Poniewozik, the TV critic at The New York Times, called the episode<\/a> \u201can emotional and delightfully bizarre wake for a comedy institution.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Late Show\u201d got some extra help. Much of Mr. Colbert\u2019s competition, including \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d and \u201cThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,\u201d ran reruns \u201cout of respect\u201d for the CBS host, Mr. Kimmel said this week.<\/p>\n Thursday night was the final episode for \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d the series that CBS debuted 33 years ago with Mr. Letterman as host. Beginning Friday, Byron Allen\u2019s \u201cComics Unleashed,\u201d a syndicated show, will take over the 11:35 p.m. time slot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert wrapped up his tenure as host of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d with his most-watched show in more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[3749,15236,13039,8,15239,9,19242,19243,15237,1529,7],"class_list":["post-32004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-cbs-corporation","tag-colbert","tag-comedy-and-humor","tag-headlines","tag-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-tv-program","tag-news","tag-ratings-audience-measurement","tag-skydance-productions-llc","tag-stephen","tag-television","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116620835042331476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}