When CBS execs made the call in 2025 to cancel The Late Show after 11 seasons, it’s unclear if anyone involved expected host Stephen Colbert to spend much of the following year earning a steady outpouring of industry support and awards recognition that had previously passed him by. The latest honor bestowed upon him, which follows a Producers Guild win in February, was the Writer’s Guild of America’s Walter Bernstein Award. As one can imagine, his acceptance speech was as awards-worthy as anything.
To be sure, Colbert didn’t use the entirety of his time on the Edison Ballroom stage to take aim at his to-be-former employers, and wasn’t nearly as deliberate with his potshots as he gets on his talk show. But it was a 15-minute speech, so there was time to tap into all manner of commentary on the matter, including addressing what will be the hardest thing for him to say farewell to when The Late Show closes its doors for good.
Introduced by his longtime friend and former collaborator Robert Smigel (of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog fame), who spoke to the Colbert Report vet’s lengthy comedic career (via Deadline), Colbert humbly gave Smigel and others props for helping him reach the successes he has. To skip to the end right quick, he wrapped his speech by honoring The Late Show's writing team, saying:
They are the best writing staff I have ever known at any show, and I have loved our time together, which wasn’t as much time as I would like. I started in late-night as one of them. Thanks to Robert, Dana Carvey and Jon Stewart, and many other people, I ended up in front of the camera every night, which is a very good job with its own responsibilities, meaning you can’t be in the writers room as much as you used to be.
(For those who either don't remember or never watched The Dana Carvey Show, it's where Colbert got his big break alongside Steve Carell, 30 Rock co-creator Robert Carlock, Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and more brilliant comedians. And it's also streaming via Tubi, so familiarize yourself sooner rather than later.)
The honoree continued his speech, sharing what he'll seemingly miss the most once The Late Show is officially done. As he put it:
And to some, hosting may seem like a hard job, and sometimes it is, but what’s also hard is hearing the laughter from the room down the hall and not be able to open it. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to be in that room, you will always want to be in that sound. And what is really gonna be hard is missing these people, who despite the fresh hell — whatever it is — that the news washes in, make that beautiful sound happen every day.
Even if one disagrees with 99% of everything that comes out of Stephen Colbert's mouth, that sentiment is hard to challenge. I think the sound of others' laughter can be one of the best parts about any job, which can only get better when those people are all professional comedy writers.
Stephen Colbert's Swipe At Paramount And CBS
Though the esteemed host didn't spent nearly as much time lambasting his studio bosses as one might have expected, he did trot out a variety of jokes and gags that were previously cut from The Late Show telecasts, many of which fell on the NSFW side of the spectrum. Of course, he couldn't refrain entirely from poking the bear.
In reference to the eponymous award being granted, which was named for a screenwriter who was blacklisted at a point when McCarthyism plagued Hollywood, Colbert said:
- This is not the 1950s. This is not the Red Scare. And, as far as I can tell, no one in late-night is fomenting a revolution. As we know, the revolution will not be televised. It was going to be televised, and then Paramount bought it. Evidently, the revolution was losing, like, $40 million a year — it had to go. I hear the revolution is thinking of starting a Substack.
The host referenced the alleged amount of money that execs claimed CBS was losing out on due to The Late Show, a total that has been contested by Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and others in the industry.
Despite the lack of love between host and network, hosts from competing networks have been quick to honor Colbert as well. Just last week, Jimmy Fallon popped by the Ed Sullivan Theater to serenade his rival with a rousing rendition of Paul Anka's "My Way." Weird that Colbert didn't mention THAT as the thing he'd miss the most when the show is over. Or not.
The Late Show airs weeknights on CBS at 11:35 p.m. ET, with the final episode already locked into the 2026 TV schedule for May 21, 2026. New episodes stream the next day via Paramount+ subscription.
