Thursday’s episode of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert opened with the host turning in his desk chair and appearing startled to see viewers he’s been entertaining for the past decade: “Oh hey, everybody,” he greeted them, with the kind of self-conscious folksiness that has defined his post- Colbert Report persona. But the bit prefaced a bombshell. Colbert revealed that he’d just been told that his show would end in May 2026. A chorus of boos reverberated through the studio audience.