
CBS's Late-Night Pivot: A $55 Million Time-Buy Replacing Colbert’s Slot
CBS replaced The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the 11:35 slot with Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed via a time-buy deal, paying CBS about $15 million to air and handle its own ads. CBS claims this shifts a slot that was losing roughly $40 million annually into about $15 million in profit—a $55 million swing—while the new show posted a strong Live+Same Day debut of about 2.14 million, though staying power remains uncertain amid broader shifts in TV economics and late-night programming.



