Overview
- CBS, in a Monday announcement, said Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed and Funny You Should Ask will take the 11:35 p.m. and 12:35 a.m. slots after The Late Show ends on May 21.
- Trade outlets report a May 22 handoff with back-to-back half-hour episodes, while the Los Angeles Times says the 11:35 p.m. move begins in September for the 2026–27 season.
- The deal is a time buy, meaning Allen pays CBS for the hours, covers production costs, and keeps most ad time to sell, which makes late night a profit center for the network.
- Executives said they canceled Colbert for financial reasons as late-night ad revenue falls and traditional talk shows carry high fixed costs for hosts, bands, and writers.
- Allen’s shows use an evergreen format that can rerun easily, and affiliates are expected to clear them as national programming, which could encourage more networks to swap costly talk shows for low-risk leased blocks.