{"id":32016,"date":"2026-05-22T23:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/32016\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T23:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T23:52:09","slug":"the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-finale-grabs-6-74-million-viewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/32016\/","title":{"rendered":"The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Finale Grabs 6.74 Million Viewers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe series finale of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d pulled off the series\u2019 most-watched weeknight episode of all time, according to early data from CBS. The Eye network reports that the finale of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d posted 6.74 million viewers on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s up from the show\u2019s 2026 Q1 average of 2.69 million viewers, per live+7 big data info. And it\u2019s above \u201cThe Late Show\u201d series premiere on Sept. 8, 2015, with averaged 6.55 million viewers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe most-watched episode of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>\u201d of all time was its post-Super Bowl episode on February 7, 2016, with a 10:54pm start time; that episode garnered 20.55 million viewers.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor comparison, but during a very different time in linear TV viewing, the final broadcast of \u201cLate Show With David Letterman\u201d in May 2015 drew 13.76 million viewers (which made it that show\u2019s largest audience since February 1994).<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d was canceled by CBS under questionable circumstances; the network said it was a fully financial decision, but the timing (right when the network\u2019s owners had a need to curry favor with the Trump administration) and the way \u201cThe Late Show\u201d was ended left plenty of fans and observers scratching their heads at the decision to kill the franchise after 33 years. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the final episode, surprise guest Paul McCartney was seeing turning out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater, the historic location where the Beatles performed on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d in 1964, and the home to \u201cThe Late Show\u201d since 1993.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Late Show\u201d ended <\/a>with McCartney and Colbert singing the Beatles\u2018 \u201cHello Goodbye,\u201d along by Elvis Costello, former band leader Jon Batiste and current band leader Louis Cato, as well as staffers singing and dancing through and around the stage.<\/p>\n

\n\tBesides McCartney, celebrity guests who dropped by included Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tim Meadows, Tig Notaro, Ryan Reynolds, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and Andy Cohen.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong other highlights, an interdimensional wormhole opened up at the Ed Sullivan Theater. And before their \u201cHello Goodbye\u201d finale, Colbert, Cato, Batiste and Costello performed Costello\u2019s 1977 tune, \u201cJump Up.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The series finale of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u201d pulled off the series\u2019 most-watched weeknight episode of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,9,369,9603,7,19244],"class_list":["post-32016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","tag-top-stories","tag-tv-ratings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116620921622579476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32016","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=32016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}