Stephen Colbert Signed Off With A Record 6.74 Million Viewers Then Went To Youtube

Stephen Colbert signed off from The Late Show on CBS after 11 seasons and nine consecutive years at the top of the late-night ratings, and he did it in front of the largest weeknight audience in the history of his run, drawing 6.74 million viewers for the series finale on Thursday night, more than double the show's typical weekly average and above the series premiere that launched his CBS tenure back in 2015. The finale had all the hallmarks of a major television event, with guests including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, and Tim Meadows, and it ended with Colbert and Paul McCartney closing out the night by singing the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye" together at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Beatles themselves had appeared more than 60 years earlier. Both of Colbert's main competitors, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, voluntarily aired repeats that night and encouraged their own audiences to tune in to CBS. CBS cited financial losses of more than $40 million a year as the reason for canceling the show, though Colbert and many in the media noted that the decision came after Colbert's criticism of parent company Paramount's multibillion-dollar merger and its controversial $16 million settlement with President Trump.

Then, less than 24 hours after saying goodbye to network television, Colbert was back on camera. He appeared on Monroe Community Media, a public access channel in Monroe, Michigan, and joked that it had been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV, so he was grateful to Monroe for having him before they, too, got acquired by Paramount. The appearance was filmed and uploaded to a brand new YouTube channel that Colbert had quietly launched, titled "Only In Monroe," and by the time the internet had found it the channel had already crossed 120,000 subscribers. The hour-long video went viral and the channel has continued to grow as fans who followed Colbert for over a decade realized that the end of the Late Show was not the end of Colbert, just the end of the part where a network owned the stage. He said in the finale that he was leaving television but had hinted throughout his final weeks that whatever comes next, he intends to keep showing up.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/may/26/stephen-colbert-youtube-channel