This week was the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, ending an 11 year run on politically contentious terms. President Donald Trump has pressured multiple networks to dump late night hosts critical of him. CBS proved to be the most compliant, announcing Colbert’s end in 2025. However, it turns out his network cancellation didn’t silence him very long, as Colbert reemerged a day later. Albeit hosting a show on Michigan cable access.
“It’s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV,” opens Colbert, “so I am grateful to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount.”
Colbert appeared on Only In Monroe during a segment on his first Late Show season. A decade later, he’s guest hosting the program, airing the room with Monroe’s regular hosts Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson. They discussed local Michigan affairs, such as legal cannabis, chili dog rivalries and bigfoot sightings. State legends Jack White, Jeff Daniels and Eminem pop by the program, as well as Bryon Allen, whose show Comics Unleashed isn’t so much replacing Colbert’s but leasing the airtime the way an infomercial would.
Colbert got the Late Show chair in 2015, dropping his conservative Colbert Report persona and picking up for David Letterman, who began the program in 1993. On the final taping, Colbert was swarmed with celebrity guests like Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds and Tim Meadows, each hoping to be the last. It capped with Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello sending Colbert off with Hello, Goodbye, a nod to the circumstances and a callback to The Beatles’ famed 1964 performance on the same stage. It is unclear if the Ed Sullivan Theater will be used for any live broadcasting moving forward.
Late night TV has been in general freefall as more people consume their comedy through podcasts and YouTube clips. You’d almost never know given the amount of scrutiny they receive from Washington, Trump more fixated on his televised critics than any president before him. When Colbert’s contract unceremoniously ended, many felt it was a gesture from Paramount CEO, CBS owner and general Trump chum David Ellison, who will have to defend massive mergers with the FCC. Similar pressure was applied to Disney to dump Jimmy Kimmel the same year. When Jimmy Kimmel Live was suspended in September, the decision was swiftly reversed as millions cancelled their Disney+ subscriptions in protest.
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Colbert will be fine, but the surreal state of affairs are far more menacing. As Mountain Goats lead John Darnielle points out, the humble cable access approach is the perfect anecdote to this corrupted ecosystem. Even major streamers have attempted to polish up their presentation, become as frictionless and over-produced as the networks. The two mediums converging in the dullest way possible. Digital media was more exciting when it seemed like a constellation of cable access shows. The longevity of the Mystery Science Theater and Angry Video Game Nerd set suggest the power of ‘the Great Lakes’ approach to pop culture. Duct tape now and live forever. While a bit, if Colbert has set a fuse in any of his audience about how divorced from commercial institutions media can be, and how wonderfully that can flourish, then this broadcast fiasco could be a blessing in disguise.
