Late Show with Stephen Colbert Information

Late Show with Stephen Colbert is an upcoming American late-night talk show hosted by Stephen Colbert on CBS, the second iteration of the CBS Late Show. The show will debut in 2015, following the retirement of current Late Show host David Letterman which will reportedly be in May. Discussions about the show were expected to begin taking place in earnest in August 2014, according to CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler.

History

CBS had previously attempted late-night talk shows with The Merv Griffin Show (1969-1972) and The Pat Sajak Show (1989-1990) but were unable to compete with NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and these attempts were cancelled due to poor ratings. For most of the 20 years preceding Late Show, CBS's late night fare consisted of movies, re-runs and specialty programming packaged under the titles CBS Late Night and Crimetime After Primetime and broadcast to middling ratings. When David Letterman became available after being passed over by NBC for the Tonight Show, CBS was eager to lure him and offered him a three-year, $14 million per year contract, doubling his Late Night salary.

In ratings, Letterman's Late Show topped Leno's Tonight Show for its first two years. Leno pulled ahead on July 10, 1995, starting with a Hugh Grant interview, after Grant's much-publicized arrest for picking up an LA prostitute. Leno also benefited from the lead-in provided by NBC's popular Must See TV prime time programs of the mid-to-late 1990s. Likewise the CBS network was hurt by affiliation switches in late 1994 relating to Fox picking up CBS's National Football League rights, stunting the Late Show just as it was beginning to gain traction. In February 2013, TV by the Numbers reported Late Show averaged about 3.1 million per show in season-to-date live-plus-seven-day ratings. A year later, average viewership was down to 2.8 million. Late Show also had the oldest audience among the various late night talk shows, which may have led to CBS's decision to pick a younger replacement to compete with The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

On April 3, 2014, Letterman announced his retirement on an unspecified date in 2015. Stephen Colbert will succeed Letterman as host in 2015, agreeing to a five-year contract. In contrast with Colbert's previous program The Colbert Report, in which he plays a fictional character also named Stephen Colbert, Colbert will host the show (which will retain the Late Show branding) as himself. On April 23, 2014, the character version of Stephen Colbert appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to announce that he has clearly "won television" and will be ending The Colbert Report because he has met his goal. This came after the announcement he will not be using the character when he replaces Letterman after The Colbert Report ends.

Several municipalities angled to acquire the Late Show, among them New York City, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Connecticut. On July 23, 2014, CBS announced that Late Show will continue to be produced at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York when Colbert takes over.

Production

In a statement released by CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler to reporters, it was reported that Colbert was "still very busy -- he's got his show on Comedy Central. We've had very early conversations regarding format. He's retiring his character on Comedy Central. He does want an interview format. Will he have a band, will he not have a band? He's thinking about a lot of these things now."