CBS has made its post-Colbert move, and it is not a new prestige host or another politics-heavy desk comic.
Instead, the network is handing the 11:35 p.m. hour to Byron Allen. Starting next month, CBS will air back-to-back episodes of Allen’s long-running comedy series ‘Comics Unleashed’ for the 2026-2027 season, with ‘Funny You Should Ask’ following at 12:35 a.m. The shift marks a sharp break from the old ‘Late Show’ model and gives CBS a broader comedy block after deciding to walk away from traditional late-night altogether.
“I created and launched ‘Comics Unleashed’ 20 years ago so my fellow comedians could have a platform to do what we all love, make people laugh,” Allen said. “I truly appreciate CBS’ confidence in me by picking up our two-hour comedy block of ‘Comics Unleashed’ and ‘Funny You Should Ask,’ because the world can never have enough laughter.”
CBS Picks Byron Allen To Fill Colbert’s Old Slot
The new lineup begins after Colbert wraps his 11-year run on May 22, with two 30-minute episodes of Allen’s show running Monday through Friday.
That choice says a lot about where CBS sees the business now. Rather than replacing Colbert with another single marquee host, the network is leaning into lower-cost comedy programming that is already built, familiar and easier to scale.
Allen’s ‘Comics Unleashed’ first debuted on CBS in September 2006 and has featured comics including Sebastian Maniscalco, Tiffany Haddish, Gabriel Iglesias, Cedric the Entertainer and Nate Bargatze. The companion show ‘Funny You Should Ask,’ hosted by Jon Kelley, will fill the 12:35 a.m. hour with back-to-back episodes as part of the same nightly block.
Colbert’s Exit Still Hangs Over The Whole Move
CBS announced last summer that it was getting out of the late-night game entirely, a decision that raised a lot of eyebrows because Colbert’s show had been the top-rated program in late-night. That is usually not when networks pull the plug.
At the time, CBS insisted the cancellation was “a purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop of late-night.” The network also said the move was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Still, that explanation did not quiet the speculation. Paramount, CBS’s parent company, was in the middle of an $8.4 billion Skydance deal after a messy merger process, and media watchers immediately started asking whether there was more going on behind the scenes.
Colbert himself did not exactly shut the door on that idea. In November, he said it was “a reasonable thing to think” the cancellation had political roots, though he added that he would not “engage in that speculation.”
CBS Is Choosing a Different Kind of Late-Night Future
That leaves Allen stepping into a very visible spot, even if the format is completely different. This is not a one-for-one replacement for Colbert. It is CBS saying the old late-night playbook no longer works the way it used to, and that a packaged comedy block makes more business sense than another expensive host-driven franchise.
For viewers, it is a major tonal shift. For the network, it is a cost calculation. And for Allen, it is a big television win hiding inside one of CBS’s most talked-about schedule changes in years.
