by Jeroslyn JoVonn
April 7, 2026
Byron Allen is about to take over CBS’s late-night timeslot following the top of Stephen Colbert’s decade-long run subsequent month.
Byron Allen has secured the 11:35 p.m. ET post-local information timeslot on CBS and is about to take over as soon as “The Late Present with Stephen Colbert” ends subsequent month.
The billionaire media mogul is predicted to fill the slot with back-to-back episodes of his “Comics Unleashed” collection, shifting it an hour later, Selection studies. The transfer follows CBS’s determination to lease out the timeslot by the 2026–2027 season, with Allen additionally securing the 12:37 a.m. hour for his comedy recreation present “Humorous You Ought to Ask.”
“I created and launched ‘Comics Unleashed’ 20 years in the past so my fellow comedians might have a platform to do what all of us love –- make individuals snort,” Allen mentioned in a press release. “I really admire CBS’ confidence in me by choosing up our two-hour comedy block of ‘Comics Unleashed’ and ‘Humorous You Ought to Ask,’ as a result of the world can by no means have sufficient laughter.”
Allen, founder, chairman, and CEO of Allen Media Group, has beforehand paid CBS to air two episodes of “Comics Unleashed,” sometimes a brand new episode paired with a rerun, at 12:37 a.m. ET. He first occupied the slot in the course of the 2023–2024 hole between “The Late Late Present With James Corden” and the launch of “After Midnight” in January 2024, and returned to it once more in September 2025 after “After Midnight” concluded.
The programming shift comes as “The Late Present” airs its last episode on Could 21, closing a franchise that started in 1993 when David Letterman moved to CBS from NBC. Stephen Colbert has hosted the present since Letterman’s 2015 retirement. Allen is about to take over the timeslot the next evening, Could 22.
CBS might even see rankings dip with the lack of “The Late Present,” lengthy the top-rated program in late evening, however the community is predicted to offset a few of that by the leased timeslot. Beneath a conventional time-buy mannequin, Allen pays for the slot and sells his personal promoting, permitting CBS to generate income from the association.
It’s a deal Allen had been eyeing from the second information broke that “The Late Present” would finish, telling attendees at New York’s Promoting Week final October, that for “50 years, I’ve been ready for this second.”
“Positively, I’m going for it… I’m investing tens of millions and tens of millions of {dollars} to show myself at 12:35,” Allen mentioned.
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