Jimmy Kimmel Skips New Episode for Stephen Colbert Late Show End
Stephen Colbert late show end lands on May 21 with a narrower late-night field than usual: Jimmy Kimmel Live will air a rerun opposite the final The Late Show With Stephen Colbert broadcast. That leaves Colbert facing only one new network competitor in NBC's Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon during his farewell episode.
May 21 on CBS
May 21 is the last night of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and the scheduling choice matters because the usual 11:35 p.m. battle is not fully intact. Jimmy Kimmel Live will go dark for the hour by airing a rerun in its normal slot, following a move Kimmel made in 2015 when he stayed off the air for David Letterman's final Late Show appearance.
2015 gives Kimmel's decision a clean precedent. Back then, he said he had “too much respect for Letterman to pull viewers away from his sign-off.” This time, the result is the same: Colbert gets one less original broadcast competing for the audience that still watches late-night live.
CBS Exit and $40 Million
July 2025 set the clock in motion when CBS said The Late Show would end the following May. The network called it “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” and reports later suggested the production was losing upwards of $40 million a year. That is the business frame around a decision that Colbert made personal on air when he told viewers, “not just the end of our show, but it's the end of The Late Show on CBS.”
Colbert also said, “I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away,” which rules out the cleaner TV handoff networks sometimes prefer. CBS instead said, “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time,” a line that turns the finale into a franchise ending rather than a host swap.
Letterman, Fallon, and Kimmel
David Letterman started The Late Show franchise in 1993 and hosted for 22 seasons before handing it to Colbert. Kimmel's rerun decision now mirrors his own 2015 choice, and that leaves Fallon as the only fresh broadcast opposite the farewell episode. For a final-night audience, that is the practical detail that matters most: less competition, more room for Colbert's exit to own the hour.
In a November exit interview, Colbert said he had a “great relationship” with CBS and described the cancellation news as “surprising and so shocking.” He also said the message reached him through his manager, not the network, a wrinkle that sits awkwardly beside CBS' clean financial explanation and the broader churn around late-night economics.
For viewers, the takeaway is straightforward: if they want the live broadcast competition around the finale, Kimmel will not be part of it. If they want the actual goodbye, May 21 on CBS is the night to watch, because Colbert's exit now faces a thinner field than a normal broadcast Thursday.
