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Seth Meyers has reacted to the late end of The Late Show, calling it a “very sad week for television in America.” Speaking to Deadline – just before the finale of Stephen Colbert’s late night show on Thursday night – Meyers commented on what the end of the show means for the TV landscape.
“I’m down,” Meyers said. “It’s very sad to lose a colleague – and even sadder to lose a slot. It would be one thing if Stephen left and a younger person had the chance to take one of these jobs, which – I can say this from personal experience – are incredibly exciting. So I think in general: it’s a very sad week for television in America.”
Instead of replacing Colbert, CBS is canceling The Late Show entirely. The station practically rents the former slot to “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen.” Colbert himself is turning to new projects: He will co-write the script for the next “Lord of the Rings” film, which will be called “The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past”.
Meyers on Colbert’s future
“I am also very confident that Stephen’s next chapter will be an exciting one – for him and for all of us,” Meyers added. “I think he’s been keeping secret what his next step would be for years and I’m really excited that it’s going to happen now.”
Meyers recently appeared once again as a guest on the “Late Show.” He, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and John Oliver joined Colbert last week in a reunion of “Strike Force Five,” the podcast the five late-night hosts launched during the 2023 writers’ strike. The group discussed the state of late-night television in detail.
Colbert noted, “You all started before me. Every one of your shows was on before this one started. And you’ll still be here long after I’m gone. You’re like the sugar coating, I’m the nougat filling – and then someone came along and just sucked it out.”
Meyers’ own worries about the late-night business
Meyers had already admitted last year that hosting “Late Night” was an uncertain business. In an appearance on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, he admitted that he had certainly thought about a possible dismissal. “I would be worried about my mental health,” he said. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about diversifying my skillset. Financially, I probably would have been fine if I had just done the show for the last 11 years. But then I thought, ‘You know what? I think it’s worth building a stand-up career and trying other things.'”
