'Comics Unleashed' Craters CBS Ratings After Stephen Colbert Exit
Yahoo • • entertainment
Key Points:
- Stephen Colbert's final episode of The Late Show on CBS attracted over 6.7 million viewers, marking the show's most-watched weeknight episode in its 11-year history and more than doubling its season average.
- Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed, which took over Colbert's 11:35 pm timeslot, drew only 995,000 viewers in its premiere, representing an 85% drop in viewership compared to Colbert's finale.
- Comics Unleashed underperformed relative to late-night competitors Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, who each garnered over 1.5 million viewers the same night, despite Allen's claims of success in targeted local markets.
- Allen Media Group purchased the timeslot for "tens of millions," allowing Allen to air Comics Unleashed and another show, Funny You Should Ask, back-to-back with direct commercial sales, though Allen acknowledged he was not aiming to replace Colbert's audience.
- Shortly after leaving The Late Show, Colbert appeared on a local public access TV program, Only in Monroe, which has garnered nearly as many views on YouTube as Allen's nationally syndicated premiere episode.