Call it, “Financial Terms Unleashed.”
If the news that CBS has “sold off” The Late Show‘s 11:35 p.m. time slot left you with questions, the producer of the long-running talk show’s upcoming replacement offers some answers.
CBS announced on Monday it has sold the plum weeknight time slot to Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group. As such, effective Friday, May 22—the night after Stephen Colbert’s final Late Show broadcast—the Allen-hosted comedy panel show Comics Unleashed will move up an hour to lead out of CBS affiliates’ local news breaks.
Another Allen Media program, a game show called Funny You Should Ask, will in turn slide in behind Comics Unleashed at 12:37, cementing CBS’s official, full-on departure from the original late-night programming business.
Instead of producing/licensing shows to occupy the late-night space, CBS instead will effectively lease the two hour-long slots to Allen Media, in what is known as a time buy. Allen’s company will in turn hope to recoup said “rent” by booking commercials directly.
“What we do is we keep the commercial time, and we sell it directly to the advertisers,” Allen explained in the Entertainment Tonight video below.
“I agreed to pay the network millions of dollars—tens of millions of dollars, OK—so this better work, or I’m going to be in front of your house in a tent!” the billionaire media mogul quipped to ET correspondent Kevin Frazier.
Ever since announcing The Late Show‘s cancellation/farewell run last July, CBS has defended its decision to walk away from supplying programming to its affiliated stations as an economic necessity. CBS has claimed that The Late Show, a successful franchise created when CBS lured David Letterman away from NBC in 1993, was losing tens of millions of dollars.
By selling the time slot to Allen Media, CBS now is guaranteed to have make (some) money off it. How/if affiliates might benefit from the deal, however, is a huge question.
After all, the move away from original late-night programming could impair viewership of local 11 p.m. newscasts. The Late Show is a well-established brand that invited viewers of CBS’s well-watched 10 p.m. shows to not change that proverbial dial. Without the promise of Colbert’s latest monologue and A-list guests, CBS viewers might now reach for the remote.
That channel-changing scenario would not only lose viewers to ABC and NBC’s late-night talkers, a trickle down effect could penalize CBS Mornings (if a telly isn’t left tuned to CBS).
A piece in The Nation referred to Allan as an “infomercial-grade comedian”. That is probably the most accurate description of him I’ve seen.
True but he’s built a billion dollar business producing infomercial-grade programming. He’s crying all the way to the bank.
Eh, I wouldn’t say “billion”-dollar business…and the only way he wasn’t completely ruined financially (which was the way it was looking back in 2013-2025) was because of frivolous lawsuits crying racial discrimination against major advertisers not wanting to do business with him.
The reason the ad companies didn’t want to buy airtime in his shows is because they were (and remain) embarrassingly cheap shit.
He wins the stupid lawsuits, which keeps him afloat, he buys Weather Channel, and becomes a punchline on shows like good-quality and funny comedy shows like The Good Place (“Byron Allen bought the Weather Channel…it’s just weird!!!” – Maya Rudolph’s character).
He may not get respect from the (celebrated) comedy community, but at least he has the respect of his employees (that’s sarcasm, they force themselves to laugh during meetings when Byron’s not yelling at everyone to make him more money, and then they talk shit about him endlessly behind his back).
The only troubling area is the CBS affiliates who will most likely NOT benefit from these mediocre shows airing in prime late night slots…where they have always aired on “lesser” stations.
On May 21, 2026, after Stephen Colbert’s show. I am taking the CBS channel off my television. I am flabbergasted that CBS would get on its knees to dicktator trump and cancel Stephen Colbert because of Colbert’s truthful reporting and mockery of trump.
I will never watch CBS again, what cowards. Sorry Byron.
I totally agree. Jimmy Kimmel here I come!
(I only watch CBS on DVR) for LMAD and Price, I may watch Unleased Live) why ya gotta be hatin on CBS?
OK I shouldn’t have said anything please delete! Thank you! 🙂
How many people were watching Allen’s show in the later time slot? Was he already paying CBS for the later timeslot?
In the end, it won’t matter, Allen is uber-rich.
Yep, and he pays his employees shit.
lol I love when comedians are moguls. That’s how you know they’re gonna connect with the audience.
I’ve been following comedy all my life and have never seen this dude do standup, and I’ve never been able to watch more than a couple of minutes of “Unleashed”. Fuck CBS
Is anyone else surprised that Jimmy Fallon is a DISTANT 3rd place, hosting the “jewel” of all the late night shows? Why are there no stories about that?