Seth Meyers Says Stephen Colbertâs Late Show Exit Marks âA Very Sad Week For Televisionâ
Seth Meyers is speaking out about Stephen Colbertâs final chapter on The Late Show, and his reaction is capturing what many late-night fans have been feeling since CBS confirmed the end of the long-running franchise.
In an interview cited by HuffPost, Meyers admitted that he was âheartbrokenâ over Colbertâs exit, calling it âa very sad week for television in America.â For Meyers, the pain was not only about losing a colleague from the late-night world. It was also about losing an entire time slot that had helped define American television for decades.
Meyers explained that it would have felt different if Colbert were simply leaving and the show were being handed to a younger host. In that case, the farewell might have carried some excitement for the future. But the fact that The Late Show slot itself is disappearing made the moment feel much heavier. To him, it was not just the end of one personâs run behind the desk. It was the shrinking of late-night television itself.
Colbertâs final episode marked the end of an 11-season run on CBS, where he had hosted The Late Show since 2015 after taking over from David Letterman. During that time, Colbert became one of the most recognizable voices in late-night, blending political satire, celebrity interviews, musical performances and deeply personal moments that often resonated far beyond the studio.
The cancellation has remained controversial. CBS has said the decision was financial rather than connected to ratings, content or political pressure. Still, Colbertâs exit arrived after years of sharp political commentary and soon after public scrutiny involving CBS parent company Paramount. That timing has kept fans, critics and fellow comedians debating whether the official explanation tells the full story.
For Meyers, however, the larger sadness seems to be about what late-night TV is losing culturally. Shows like The Late Show have long been more than entertainment programs. They have acted as nightly gathering places, where audiences could process politics, pop culture, tragedy, absurdity and national anxiety through humor. Losing one of those stages means losing a familiar voice at a time when viewers still look to comedy for clarity.
Meyersâ comments also carried the emotion of someone who understands the job from the inside. Hosting a late-night show is not just about jokes and interviews. It means navigating breaking news, public pressure, shifting audiences, demanding production schedules and the constant challenge of making people laugh in tense times. That is why his reaction felt personal, not performative.
The end of Colbertâs show has also sparked reactions from across the entertainment world. Other late-night figures and celebrities have praised Colbertâs influence, while fans continue to share clips from his final episode and reflect on what his voice meant to them. The farewell has become less like a standard TV cancellation and more like a symbolic turning point for an entire format.
In the end, Seth Meyersâ words cut through the noise surrounding CBS, ratings and industry politics. He gave fans a simple way to understand the loss: America is not just saying goodbye to Stephen Colbertâs show. It is saying goodbye to a piece of late-night television history.
And for many viewers, that makes this goodbye hurt even more.
