By Joe Concha

Published May 20, 2026 6:00am ET

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Stephen Colbert’s demise, by the numbers

“You’re the ‘presi-dunce,’ but you’re turning into a real ‘prick-tator.’ [Donald Trump], you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign-language gorilla that got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.”

That’s the kind of “comedy” we were subject to during Stephen Colbert‘s forgetful tenure as the host of The Late Show on CBS. Homophobic slurs? No problem. The far Left ate these angry screeds up, while media reporters such as Brian Stelter called Colbert’s offering “iconic” in a sycophantic story this week.

“Colbert is signing off ‘The Late Show’ this week as CBS ends the iconic late-night TV franchise,” Stelter wrote for CNN. “Many ‘Late Show’ fans are disappointed, even angry, about the cancellation, doubting CBS’s rationale for the decision and believing that appeasement politics toward President Trump are at play.”

Stelter is one of many who are buying into this ridiculous narrative that President Donald Trump, after literally thousands of attacks from Colbert for more than a decade, suddenly ordered his show taken off the air. But let’s remove the noise and get to the numbers, because therein lies the reason Colbert will no longer occupy the Ed Sullivan Theater.

200-plus

That’s the number of staffers The Late Show currently employs. Can anyone explain why a program that consists almost entirely of two people talking across a desk needs more than 200 staffers?

22

That’s the number of writers Colbert has to craft his monologues, according to show credits. Most of those monologues are screeds against Trump and/or conservatives right out of the movie Groundhog Day. The days may change, but everything stays the same. Trump. Trump. Trump.

95%

That’s the number of jokes that targeted Trump and/or conservatives after CBS announced in July 2025 that Colbert would be going off the air, according to the Media Research Center.

100%

That’s the number of guests who were liberal on Colbert’s show after his cancellation was announced in July 2025, also per the MRC.

1

That’s how many “Republicans” have been invited on. And of course, that was the anti-Trump Liz Cheney, who campaigned with Democrat Kamala Harris leading up to her shellacking in the 2024 election.

15

That’s the number of times that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has appeared as a guest on the show.

0

That’s the number of times that arguably the most popular comedian in the game today, Sebastian Maniscalco, has appeared on Colbert in the past eight years. His last appearance was in 2018, and he has not been invited back since.

0

That’s the number of times Bill Maher has appeared on Colbert in the past decade. Maher is not shy about criticizing his own party. He also met with Trump last year at the White House. That’s a big no-no in Colbert’s world, where speaking to anyone on the other side of the aisle is completely unacceptable.

14

That’s the number of times CNN anchor Jake Tapper has appeared on Colbert. Tapper recently compared Colbert’s fate to that of a murdered priest in an on-air screed on CNN.

“It is inescapable that the decision by CBS Paramount to cancel Colbert pleased Trump, and the folks who owned CBS Paramount at the time got what they wanted, and they were handsomely compensated for it,” Tapper said last week. “Now, Trump never posted on Truth Social, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome comedian?’ But anyone trying to curry favor with Trump surely knew where key pressure points were.”

Nowhere during this conspiracy-filled rant did Tapper mention the most important number of all:

$40 million

That’s how much money Colbert’s program was losing for CBS each year, according to the network. So instead of blaming Trump for his demise, perhaps consider that losing this kind of money is not sustainable for a public company that needs to answer to its shareholders.

2

That’s what place Colbert finishes in the late-night ratings race. On most nights, he loses to first-place Greg Gutfeld on Fox News by more than 1 million viewers.

Replacing Colbert will be Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen starting on Friday.

150 million-plus

In an interview with the Wrap, Allen said CBS will save “approximately $150 million+ per year just on production and marketing” by replacing Colbert with his show.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5867921&forum_id=2#49893179)