On July 18, 2025, the media world was rocked by the announcement that CBS would cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, ending its storied run in May 2026. Among the chorus of voices reacting to this seismic shift, Andy Cohen, host of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, emerged as one of the most poignant, declaring, “This is a sad day for late-night television.” Speaking to Deadline on the red carpet for the Las Culturistas Culture Awards, Cohen, a former CBS employee, expressed disbelief and sorrow, stating, “I think it’s a sad day for CBS. I think Stephen Colbert is a singular talent. He’s going to have an incredible next chapter.” His words captured a sentiment shared by many in the industry: the loss of The Late Show marks not just the end of a program but a potential turning point for the beleaguered late-night genre, raising questions about the future of broadcast television and the influence of political and corporate pressures.

Cohen’s reaction was deeply personal, rooted in his decade-long tenure at CBS, where he witnessed the network’s rise as a late-night powerhouse under David Letterman. “I spent 10 years at CBS,” he told Deadline, reflecting on the network’s legacy. “It’s sad for CBS, really.” He expressed shock that CBS would “turn off the lights at 11:30 after the local news,” a move he saw as a retreat from a time slot that has defined the network’s identity since Letterman’s era in the mid-1990s. Cohen emphasized Colbert’s unique contribution, noting that The Late Show was one of only three late-night programs deemed worthy of an Emmy nomination, underscoring its critical and cultural significance. “I can’t believe CBS is turning out the lights at 11:30,” he reiterated, his tone blending incredulity with mourning for an industry he believes is “cooked” without such a vital program.

The timing of the cancellation fueled speculation about motives beyond CBS’s stated “purely financial decision.” Just days before the announcement, Colbert had sharply criticized CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, for settling a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump over an allegedly edited 60 Minutes interview. Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe,” a jab that some, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff, suggested may have contributed to the decision. Cohen, speaking on Andy Cohen Live on SiriusXM, offered a nuanced take, acknowledging the financial pressures of late-night television but questioning the abruptness of the move. “If a show is losing money that is also super important to the network… what they would probably do is say, ‘Listen, Stephen, your show is losing X amount of money a year. We could cut the budget in half, maybe move out of the Ed Sullivan Theater, do the show in a smaller studio,’” he said, proposing alternatives like reducing staff or taping fewer days a week. “Instead, they’re turning the lights out completely at 11:30, which says to me, it’s like CBS is just cooked.”

Cohen’s critique reflects broader anxieties about the state of late-night television, a genre struggling against declining ad revenue—down from $439 million in 2018 to $220 million last year—and the shift to streaming platforms. Yet, his comments also hint at a deeper concern: the potential politicization of media decisions. The cancellation came amid Paramount’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media, which requires approval from the Trump-appointed FCC chairman, Brendan Carr. This context led figures like Warren to demand clarity on whether the decision was politically motivated, a sentiment echoed across X posts and by commentators like Jon Stewart, who quipped on The Daily Show that “cancel culture has gone too far.” Cohen, while not directly alleging political interference, suggested that CBS’s decision to end the franchise entirely, rather than retool it, signals a lack of commitment to late-night’s cultural role.

The outpouring of support for Colbert—from peers like Jimmy Kimmel, who posted “Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS,” to John Oliver and Jimmy Fallon—underscored the industry’s solidarity. Cohen’s appearance alongside these figures in a surprise cameo on The Late Show on July 22, during a Coldplay-themed parody segment, further highlighted this unity. As Lin-Manuel Miranda and “Weird Al” Yankovic performed, the camera panned to Cohen, Fallon, Stewart, and others in the audience, a visual testament to Colbert’s influence. For Cohen, the cancellation is not just a professional loss but a cultural one, stripping away a platform that, as comedy writer Jill Twiss noted, allows society to collectively process the absurdities of the day through humor. As late-night faces an uncertain future, Cohen’s words linger as both a lament and a call to preserve the genre’s legacy, urging the industry to find new ways to keep the lights on.