Colbert’s Late Show Finale Jumps 35% in Delayed Viewing to 9.1 Million

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First on LateNighter: Stephen Colbert left CBS late night last Thursday night, but viewers kept watching.

Nielsen live-plus-three-day ratings are in for Colbert’s Late Show finale, and they show that his CBS swan song grew to 9.123 million total viewers—up 35% from its already-sizable same-day audience of 6.74 million.

That makes Thursday’s final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert his most-watched regular weeknight Late Show episode ever. The only Colbert-hosted Late Show episode to draw a larger overall audience remains his special Sunday night post-Super Bowl broadcast in 2016, which averaged 20.8 million total viewers as measured by live-plus-three-day data.

The finale also put Colbert ahead of another recent late-night ratings milestone: Jimmy Kimmel’s Sept. 23, 2025 return-from-suspension episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which grew to 8.6 million viewers in Live+3, marking that show’s highest-rated episode ever.

Kimmel still holds the edge in total-viewer share. His September return commanded a 32.88% share of the total audience, the highest late-night share in more than 30 years, dating back to Johnny Carson’s final month on The Tonight Show. Colbert’s finale came close, posting a 31.57% share among total viewers.

In adults 18–49, Colbert’s finale drew 1.459 million viewers in Live+3. That ranks as the seventh-highest regular weeknight Late Show episode of his tenure in the demo by raw audience.

By share, though, the finale set a new Colbert-era Late Show high. Among adults 18–49, Thursday’s broadcast posted a 24.55% share, the show’s best ever in the demo.

David Letterman’s CBS farewell still towers over Colbert’s in raw audience: his May 2015 finale drew 17.147 million viewers in Live+3, including 5.039 million adults 18–49. But that comparison comes with a pretty big 11-year asterisk. Broadcast television viewership has plummeted since 2015—roughly 50% overall, and far more sharply among younger viewers, where primetime 18–49 ratings are down more than 85%.

In that light, Colbert’s 9.123 million viewers are less a sign of diminished interest than of a dramatically smaller linear TV landscape. His finale also outperformed Letterman’s in one notable way: Colbert’s 24.55 share among adults 18–49 beat Letterman’s 18.70 share from 2015, even as Letterman’s raw demo audience was more than three times larger.

Colbert’s finale capped a run that began in September 2015 and ended the Late Show franchise’s 33-year run at CBS. The episode leaned heavily into the moment, with Paul McCartney helping turn out the lights at the Ed Sullivan Theater and a parade of drop-ins from late-night peers and celebrity friends, including Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Andy Cohen, Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Tim Meadows, Tig Notaro, Ryan Reynolds, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

CBS has maintained that its decision to end The Late Show was financial. The timing of that decision, however—amid heightened scrutiny of Paramount’s efforts to secure regulatory approval for its Skydance merger—made the show’s cancellation one of the most debated late-night stories in years.

Complete ratings charts for the night of May 21, 2026, follow below.

Note: Time period listed is the most common airtime for each show.

Live+ 3 Ratings — All Viewers (P2+)

Live+ 3 Ratings — In the Demo (P18-49)

Ratings data © The Nielsen Company, used under license.